END OF THE NIGHT. To 3 August.

London

END OF THE NIGHT
by Andrew Cartmel

White Bear Theatre To 3 August 2003
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 4pm
Runs 1hr 50min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7793 9193
Review: Timothy Ramsden

Showing how hard a good thriller' is to write.The trouble with having rugs pulled from under your feet is that you decide it's not worth standing up. A modern thriller's ingenuity may be measured by the tricks it pulls off, reinventing how the action's perceived. But the script's skill is its ability to maintain an audience's belief in the action's ultimate coherence and persuade people to keep caring about what's 'real'.

One problem with Andrew Cartmel's new thriller presented by Long Shadow productions in association with Fumiko Thomas, is that belief trickles away as matters get into their stride. By the time you find out what Hampstead party-host and psychologist Patrick Long is up to, it no longer seems likely - or interesting. It's not, anyway, good for a thriller to have any significant niceness in its denouement.

Thrillers are relatively easy to write up to the interval. Expertise is needed when the knots unwind; here, plodding exposition clunks repeatedly in, while the contrived timing of entries becomes more obvious.

Cleo Pettitt's set successfully suggests Hampstead intellectual affluence, including an offstage garden, but even this provokes questions: Why this? Why here? Cartmel uses modern thriller plotting but characters and setting are traditional pros. arch stuff whether the arch concerned belongs to a West End Theatre or a local hall. Direction and acting fit the same mould. This is a picture-frame production on an intimate open stage.

Only two performances meet the mark. They're at opposite ends of the character spectrum. Jonathan Rigby brings a cruel, cool-smiling plausibility to his diabolic plotter, while Caroline Gregory's innocent-sweet bookshop girl (very Hampstead) is alone in believably experiencing events and learning more about herself. For the rest, it's just acting which can be pretty much what the genre requires, but the falseness is exposed in such a small space.

There's a sting in the tail; it's Cartmel's strongest point and says something about older men and younger women. The plotters are caught in their plot, one exposed as ridiculous in his motives, the other caught out by his self-assurance and multiple deceits as reality bursts in. The tail wags OK; but the dog in front of it's a mongrel.

Poppy: Charlotte Comer
Dr Patrick Long: David McGillivray
Beltrane: Jonathan Rigby
Melissa Tucker: Caroline Gregory
Jack Cantor: Iain Stirland
Professor Beaglehole: David Brett
Ava Bree: Sara Dee
Simon Tacker: Johnie Lyne-Pirkis

Director: Pip Minnithorpe
Designer: Cleo Petitt
Lighting: Irene Pulga
Assistant director: Nina Brazier
Sound/Music: Martin Pavey

2003-07-20 12:38:52