INGLORIOUS TECHNICOLOUR. To 1 July.

Scarborough

INGLORIOUS TECHNICOLOUR
by Christopher William Hill

Stephen Joseph Theatre (McCarthy) To 1 July 2006
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 2.45pm
Runs 2hr 30min One interval

TICKETS: 017223 370541
www.sjt.uk.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 June

Colourful components don't add up to a bigger picture.
It’s hard to see much connection between the England represented by a struggling north-eastern school where single mum Lynn’s been in about her son so often she remembers teachers by the biscuits they give her, where young art teacher Matt sees talent in that son while headteacher Howard prepares for an inspection with an assembly about toilets and worries over what style of taps to install in the refurbished pupil loos.

And by sophisticated London gallery owner Antonia, who whisks the new lavatory doors, decorated in sullen anger by Ryan’s graffiti, to create a new art sensation, with European galleries bidding 6-figure sums for them.

Christopher William Hill packs a lot in: criticism of the school system, disaffected youth, satire on a trend-fatigued art world and a re-stirred relationship between former idealist art students being the chief strands. But there’s no focus, and insufficient consistency. The Matt-Antonia relationship starts too late and makes no point. Headteacher Howard begins as a wittering poltroon who’s all too believably presiding over a failing institution; later he becomes seriously concerned about educational issues.

There are elements of head-to-head (so to speak) confrontations between headteacher and gallery-owner, contrasting his small pool of power with her authority in a wider, more shallow world. But this too is hardly developed.

The problem’s clearest in Ryan’s mother, a character for whom Hill has no clear purpose, though Jackie Lye invests her with the acting ease that makes her Hull Truck work so convincing; the ability to give reality to paper-thin characters. Michael Imerson’s terrific as Ryan, an adolescent uncertain of himself and others round him, while David Ricardo-Pearce quietly builds an understated authority as a youngish man not certain of his use in life.

But Michael Bertenshaw and Rina Mahoney are so composed of surface acting mannerisms it’s near-impossible to find any reality in their characters. Philip Witcomb’s set re-angles the school’s scrawled walls behind the gallery’s perspex elegance of act 2. It’s a strong, economic statement of the play’s contrasted environments. But with a script that veers between sitcom and social drama the impact overall remains muffled.

Lynn Nesbitt: Jackie Lye
Matt Dolby: David Ricardo-Pearce
Howard Jensen: Michael Bertenshaw
Ryan "Garch" Nesbitt: Michael Imerson
Antonia Fisher: Rina Mahoney

Director: Laurie Sansom
Designer: Philip Witcomb
Lighting: Ian Saunders

2006-06-24 11:26:40