DANGEROUS CORNER by J.B. Priestley. Garrick Theatre

London

DANGEROUS CORNER
by J.B. Priestley

Garrick Theatre
Runs 2hr 10min One interval

TICKETS 020 7494 5085
Review Timothy Ramsden 19 November 2001

Updated, Priestley's supposed warhorse proves a thoroughbred.We can take modern-dress Shakespeare, with characters waving flick-knives as they talk of drawing swords, so why not lift Priestley's 1932 dramatic debut into the present tense? The friction between thirties phraseology and modern manners soon beds in and the play's issues emerge into clear view when the period varnishing's wiped away.

Besides, it's a neat ploy to adopt with a dramatist so fascinated by time. His trick here is to loop the play's end back to its beginning and show how a different conversational turn can save a lot of trouble. Careless talk costs lives, especially in fatal combination with the search for too much truth.

Laurie Sansom's production has improved immeasurably since its prototype at Watford several seasons back. Among the cast Dervla Kirwan is especially successful in adapting the loyal lovesick woman beloved of the 1930s – and of Priestley – into an assured, emotionally mature, yet troubled modern person.

Though it comes over here as an ensemble piece, the play's really about Robert Caplan, the publisher who demands the truth and when he learns it cannot face life. Rupert Penry-Jones gives him an open-faced innocence amid the incredible tangle of secrets hidden among those around him. Until his final, ground-chewing collapse, he skilfully combines Priestley's heated hero with a cooler modernity.

Good work from Anna Wilson-Jones as his unloving wife, her social control wearing increasingly ragged as the evening wears on. Steve John Shepherd's Gordon moves smoothly from easy-going family comedian to anger-fuelled violence, verbal or physical, against anyone who criticises his dead idol – the script's homophobia is tactfully reduced. And, as the outsider who's always had to strive for the approval the others could assume, Patrick Robertson maintains a slight sense of separation from everyone else.

Sansom is sensitive to the characters' varying emotional temperatures, while Jessica Curtis's set cages this smart set in a house whose extensive windows open onto a dark forest. Mic Pool's video creates a literally smashing moment involving the bird referred to in Priestley's script.

Olwen Peel: Dervla Kirwan
Maud Mockeridge: Jacqueline Pearce
Robert Caplan: Rupert Penry-Jones
Charles Stanton: Patrick Robinson
Gordon Whitehouse: Steve John Shepherd
Freda Caplan: Anna Wilson-Jones
Betty Whitehouse: Katie Foster-Barnes

Director: Laurie Sansom
Designer: Jessica Curtis
Lighting: Chris Davey
Sound/Video: Mic Pool
Composer: Matthew Herbert

2001-11-20 02:30:07