FOLLOW. To 22 November.
London.
FOLLOW
by Dameon Garnett.
Finborough Theatre Finborough Brasserie 118 Finborough Road SW10 9ED To 22 November 2008.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat & Sun 3pm.
Runs 1hr 30min One interval.
TICKETS: 0844 847 1652 (24hr, no booking fee).
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk (discounted full-price tickets online).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 9 November.
Speke for England, and Pompey playing away.
Someone from around there once told me Portsmouth was a northern town placed in England’s south. Up from Pompey, Reece wonders why everyone assumes southerners are posh. He’s not, escaping an Asbo by staying at friend Blake’s home in Speke, Liverpool.
His Portsmouth’s a land of tower-blocks, and he’s seeking his lost father, while Blake’s been thrown out by his wife. ‘His’ home is actually his dad’s, and his baby soon follows him there.
The young men dream of flight to sunny Australia, a dream contrasted by the need to bring up baby, and the dilemma brought about by Reece getting involved with a local drug dealer.
Dameon Garnett’s rapid-fire, short-scene terseness hustles the action along, the hopes, urgency and limited practicality of the younger men contrasted by the steadier attempts of the more mature Gary to rebuild his own life round a new relationship while directing his son towards responsibility.
Never showing the women in these men’s lives, and contrasting the structure provided by a father who’s present with Reece’s rudderless existence, intensifies the combat between ill-focused aspirations and the demands of mundane reality.
It’s sketched in the changing attitudes of both young men to Blake’s baby, from incompetence and reluctance to a measure of care – though the development seems more a playwright’s scheme than something very likely to happen in such a short time.
Quick glimpses into these lives tell a story cinematically but limit knowledge of the characters to mere acquaintance. Ken Alexander’s cast ensure they’re vividly presented, pointing up the individuality. Paul Regan’s Gary is resolute in reconstructing his own life, and insisting his son avoids imminent pitfalls by doing the right thing.
Oliver Gilbert shows the well-disposed Reece floundering on the fringes of crime with his bright mind, while Adam Redmore moves Blake from irresponsibility to signs of genuine attachment to his child.
These strong portrayals, propelled by the pace and precision of Alexander’s direction – there’s real desperation, for example, in the search for lost drugs – point up the particularity of Garnett’s play in its insistence on the value of lives from the anonymous estates.
Blake: Adam Redmore.
Gary: Paul Regan.
Reece: Oliver Gilbert.
Director: Ken Alexander.
Designer: Georgia Lowe.
Lighting: Richard Williamson.
2008-11-13 15:13:49