FEED.To 25 February.

Oldham

FEED
by Tom Elliott

Coliseum Theatre To 25 February 2006
Tue-Thu; Sat 77.30pm Fri 8pm Mat 11, 25 Feb 2.30pm 15 Feb 2pm
Audio-described 15 Feb 7.30pm
BSL Signed 8 Feb
Post-show Talk-out 14 Feb
Runs 2hr 30min One interval

TICKETS: 0161 624 2829
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 February

Fun and games do fine but the serious stuff behind remains ill-focused.
Tom Elliott’s 1992 play has outlived its main character. However old and semi-senile one-time variety singer/comic Harry Troop is, he could hardly have survived into 2006. Harry had a variety career going back way before World War II, and found himself overtaken by the new medium of – wait for it – the wireless.

Elliott provides strong material for scenes recalling Harry’s acts, funny enough to suggest a measure of success, corny enough to show why he never reached top-of-the-bill. And Nick Lumley performs them with a finesse that must mark him down someday to be Osborne’s Archie Rice in The Entertainer. Like Archie, Harry has a tinge of failure forever wafting in from the wings. There’s a measure of malice too, letting his fine stage-partner Stella drift away on clouds of dreams to Hollywood instead of bringing her down to earth by pointing out her illiteracy will kill a career relying on scripts rather than repeating familiar material twice nightly.

In his present-day twilight, there’s a hint of the mixed affection and asperity between Harry and Stella in his dealings with nurse Stephanie, who’s eventually called away by a resurrected marriage. But designer Dawn Allsopp sets these in an ill-defined space looking like a municipal seaside shelter, suitable enough for the summer shows Harry relied on, but unhelpful in creating much sense of relationship for 2-character scenes.

It’s here Mark Chatterton’s production falls down overall. Harry’s stage-act comes across fine, but his relationships with Stella and later Jessie (the difference between the 2 female halves of his turn insufficiently defined), and with his bitter daughter Edith lack definition. All 3 performers are good (Rachel Laurence adds a fine comic cameo as an early BBC employee sure of the Corporation’s mission to eliminate regional accents, testing a Harry uneasy at the transition from stage to microphone), and Phil Davies’ lighting makes neat points about memory as characters appear through the glass panels, or Stella walks away along the seafront. But the slack staging means relationships barely develop, never fully showing why a career in mirth and merriment should leave such scars behind.

Edith/Jessie/BBC Woman: Rachel Laurence
Harry Troop: Nick Lumley
Stephanie/Stella Turner: Julie Riley

Director: Mark Chatterton
Designer: Dawn Allsopp
Lighting: Phil Davies
Sound: Dan Ogden
Musical Director: Howard Gay
Choreographer: Beverley Edmunds

2006-02-07 12:03:05