NO MAN'S LAND. To 25 August.

Edinburgh Fringe

NO MAN'S LAND

2Good4Titles theatre company at Metro Gilded Balloon Teviot To 25 August 2003
11.30am
Runs 55min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 August

Neat idea, but all dressed up without seeming to have anywhere to go.No-one made more of the Drama of Ideas than Bernard Shaw. But this Pygmalion-derived piece shows there's more than an idea when it comes to making a drama. Though the concept's intriguing a transfer of the central Eliza/Higgins relationship to a World War I setting - it's hard to see what the point is.

It might have been interesting to have seen Shavian certainty under the strain of an old order breaking down what price fine speech and parties now? But this isn't developed. So, what is the point?

Sex, I suppose. This Higgins is perpetually leering over Eliza except when, inexplicably, she makes a momentary advance on him, bringing out the British officer class's underlying nervousness about women. But as Eliza's on her way to ladylike speech, the point lacks the social clarity of She Stoops to Conquer, which is fatal in a play soaked in social expectations.

And, while months away from women might have most men eyeing an opportune cleavage, Higgins is first candidate for an exception. The one person this play shows us groping for sex, is the one character who's prior stage existence makes the appetite unlikely. It may be a double-bluff, a previously masked desire brought into the open by deprivation, but if so this needs clarifying.

Other questions remain unanswered. Higgins may be forceful in nature, but he's a Major here, so outranked by Colonel Pickering. Yet Pickering's constantly the junior partner here much more than in Shaw. Again, it may be sex. There's one point certainly where the Colonel seems to have a passionate, if platonic, feeling for his fellow linguist. Someone, even if only Higgins' mother (who somehow seems to be staying in the barracks), would surely have commented on her son's failure to observe rank.

The anonymous performances have confidence. But they lack subtlety or technical sophistication. Though, in this company at least, there's an Eliza who has a good measure of confidence. Yet stolid direction does little more than place people appropriately on stage.

The company have placed Great War posters round the stage. One I'd not seen before, is an intriguing piece of blackmail addressed to young women, suggesting any man who let's his country down by not enlisting can hardly be trusted as boyfriend or husband.

Those scheming authorities. But this isn't a musical; you really shouldn't come out hymning the scenery.

Cast and credits not available

2003-09-02 13:58:01