Gasping: Elton: Haymarket Basingstoke to 12th November 2005

Basingstoke

GASPING
by Ben Elton.

Haymarket Theatre To 12th November 2005
Monday-Sat 7.30 p.m.
Runs 2hr 3min One interval

TICKETS: 0870 770 1088/ 01256 465566
www.haymarket.org.uk
Review Mark Courtice: h November 2005

Damp Squib.
The fire alarm before the start of the show was apparently set off by a sparkler in the restaurant. It’s nice to know that there was something sparkling in the theatre as there were no fireworks on stage.

Elton's plodding allegory, constantly repeating and banging away at its simplistic theme, with lumbering satire hopelessly stuck in the last decade is a dull night indeed. Performances and production standards here did little to help.

Elton takes the conceit that big business can harvest and then sell air. In time capitalism has reduced the poor to purple, choking fodder for local authority air, while the rich suck up designer variants. His thesis is that this is no more bizarre than what we have already done with food and fuel, and we are then banged over the head by this comparison for two very long hours. There is an affair and some heavy handed satire on those who have "people" who meet "people" and use flip charts.

The play demands full-out playing of the caricatures, a lively sense of grotesque and a certain devil take the hindmost attitude over the lack of real characterisation. This company appeared to be lost - one insecure with his lines after a week of performances, another incomprehensibly swallowing lines, and the whole served up with desperate mugging and the wind-milling arms of actors not waving but drowning.

A certain high tech gloss is essential, with a large number of locations reflecting Elton's TV background and the fact that it is a first play. The challenge appears to have overwhelmed designer Janet Bird and the Basingstoke team. Changes were held up by a lumbering revolve, finish on the set left gaps which made it hard to believe in the (essential to the plot) air-tight office; and we knew the infernal machine was a Dyson with a funnel on it; surely this could have been a chance for some designer joie de vivre?

Philip: Simon Merrells
Sir Chiffley Lockheart: John Vine
Sandy: David Marshallsea
Kirsten Carlton: Rae Hendrie

Director: Paul Jepson
Designer: Janet Bird
Lighting: Simon Hutchings

2005-11-15 17:17:26