NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND: Bryson, adapt Hodson, touring till 9 June
NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND: Bill Bryson, adapted by Paul Hodson
Tours: till 9 June
Runs: 1h 40m, one interval
Review: Rod Dungate, Gatehouse Stafford, 22 March 2002
Steen brings added value to Bryon's book that we've taken to our hearts in a gentle and enormously pleasurable eveningSteve Steen brings added value to Bill Bryson's NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND in his one-man show. To a man and a woman we took Bryson's greatly loving and gently mocking view of Britain to our hearts when he wrote it (them?) in the mid 90s. What Steen brings to them in performance is some great clowning and a terrific sense of comic timing.
Bryson notes that 'The British are unusually good about letting you take the piss out of them' and goes on to say 'it's possible to do it . . . because they are always doing it to themselves – it's an instinct not to take things too seriously.' Now, as Bryson shows in the attitudes underpinning his writing, with our system of inherited Establishment, our transport system and above all our weather, the only way to survive at all is not to take things too seriously – a lesson we all learn as babes-in-arms.
Yet however much Bryson holds up his distorting mirror to our natures he comes from a position of love – and that's why his writing is so successful. Steen successful brings out both qualities – the satire and the affection. He smoothly changes gear between the two taking us on, not so much a helter-skelter but, more, a gently undulating country road. The pleasure is immediate and potent.
Steen is at his best when his acting skills come most into play: his Welsh TV Soap and visit to a Glasgow pub are hilarious. He has an admirable ability to draw characters in rich broad brush-strokes too – a hotel proprietor, an old guy in Liverpool. Then, lest we get too sentimental, he can pull the rug away from under our feet with crushing one-liners!
Perhaps more powerful than anything else in Bryson's writing in performance, is the sense, not just our quaintness, endearingness and as often as not our sheer bloody-mindedness, but of a Britain fast disappearing. As Bryson/Steen says, speaking as much for us as himself: 'It's crazy as fuck' but we love it 'All of it – every bit of it.'
Actor: Steve Steen
Director: Paul Hodson
Lighting and Set: Dave Blake
Music: Steve Wrigley and Rory Cameron
Still to tour to: Wakefield Theatre Royal: Inverness: Eden Court: Winchester: Theatre Royal: High Wycombe: Town Hall: Sheffield Crucible: Hornchurch Queens: Harlow Playhouse: Southampton: Nuffield: Weston-Super-Mare Playhouse: Milford Haven Torch: Tonbridge: EM Forster: Buxton Opera House: Pendley May Court Jersey Opera House: Pocklington Civic Arts: South Shields Customs House: Broxbourne Civic Hall: Coventry Warwick Arts: Cambridge Cambridge Arts: Bath Theatre Royal
2002-03-23 09:56:42