COOL BLOKES: DECENT SUITS + SUITS 2: Bootleg Theatre Company Salisbury Playhouse
Cool Blokes: Decent Suits + Suits 2: Back from the Cleaners
by Russell Mardell
Salisbury Playhouse, 29th January 2003 to 1st February 2003 at 7.45 p.m.
Runs 1hours 43 minutes: One Interval
Tickets 01722 320333: http://www.salisburyplayhouse.com
Review Mark Courtice: 31st January 2003
Clever glimpse into a world of shooters and sharp suiting.
Two men meet mysteriously in an empty room in a warehouse. It emerges that they are a shooter and muscle summoned to carry out a hit, and from then on, a struggle for superiority begins. Because to them killing is just a job, middle management jargon springs as easily to their lips as reminiscences of their first hits. Both inhabit the double- and triple-cross world of crime and bit by bit lead us into their way of thinking. In two short episodes with an interval between, we go through several reverses of fortune as the two strangers get to know, cheat and try to kill each other. One subject about which both are passionate is clothes indeed the only way to distract them from murder is to compliment or criticize them on their designer suits and shoes.
Sharply written and thought-through so a complete vision is created we are carried along into a mirror world where morality and logic are skewed. Cleverly Mardell stops us caring about the actual reality of their talk of contracts and hits (indeed, if you are not caught up, disbelief would creep in very quickly) and we accept the bizarre premises of these weird men. We are lured into a world where morality is perverted; one of the men has a fifteen year old girl friend and the whole audience laughs at the jokes about her. This glimpse of a nether world is very funny, with good jokes, sharp comment and quick fire observation.
David Taylor as Hammersmith is excellent, completely convincing and funny as the Manchester hard man; Colin Durden swallows jokes occasionally, and although framed by nature to be someone you would not want to meet in a lonely warehouse, was less consistent in keeping concentration on character.
The acting is backed up by simple and straightforward production, unobtrusive direction, and some good sound in Act 2. Detail was skimped (a box with horrible contents clearly contained nothing), and although this was a shame, it is right that in this show, acting is the thing.
Hammersmith: David Taylor
Quinn: Colin Burden
Man's Voice: Arthur Acton
Director: Russell Mardell
Lighting: Philip Brant
Sound: Kevin Scott
2003-02-04 08:59:15