RAINBOW KISS. To 6 May.

London

RAINBOW KISS
by Simon Farquhar

Royal Court Theatre (Jerwood Theatre Upstairs) To 6 May 2006
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 4pm
Post-show talk 25 April
Runs 2hr One interval

TICKETS: 020 7565 5000/020 7565 5100
www.royalcourttheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 April

Showing life isn’t a piece of cake in modern Scotland.
It’s grim up north in the Granite City of Aberdeen, on the 15th floor of a shabby housing scheme where Keith’s life passes him by. His experience of communications has dwindled from film studies at university to work in a BT call-centre. BT, he tells a drunk Shazza, stands for nothing these days, and nor does Keith.

When Shazza stands him up before the end of their shagging session, he’s into the emotional downer that makes up the play. ’Fuck Off’, first-time playwright Stewart Farquhar was going to call it. A pity he changed his mind. The phrase catches the casual brutality of Keith’s experiences.

He’s a ready-made victim of sex and violence whose only companion is middle-aged neighbour Murdo, with his red-veined cheeks and air of ruffled indolence. Murdo’s survived a suicide-spanned life by luck and only holds down a job as a department-store Santa half-an-hour.

Keith’s marriage survived less than the instalment plan on the wedding-ring and he’s left holding the baby. When he has to choose between mid-sex ecstasy with Shazza and responding to baby’s cries, it’s not a matter of right or wrong call so much as being up to making a decision at all.

Sex and violence, the shopping channel and fucking, loneliness and lovelessness; Farquhar poignantly expresses his passive protagonist’s situation, though as a first play there are limitations. The explicit sex and violence are unequally integrated in Keith’s life. There’s insufficient circumstantial detail to anchor events, while Richard Wilson’s scrupulously detailed production with its four fine performances has to carry a few flat moments in the dialogue.

Joe McFadden gives Keith an initial energy that fades and sours, showing Shazza’s visits are an oasis in a life of nervy powerlessness. Dawn Steele’s purposeful performance makes clear from the start she may come up to see him on the 15th floor but isn’t going to be dragged down to his level when better offers. Clive Russell’s Murdo is Keith’s future; taking what comes and living out of a plastic carrier, while Graham McTavish is perfect as the intrusive Scobie, Keith’s opposite in every way.

Shazza: Dawn Steele
Keith: Joe McFadden
Murdo: Clive Russell
Scobie: Graham McTavish

Director: Richard Wilson
Designer: Dick Bird
Lighting: Johanna Town
Sound: Ian Dickinson

2006-04-23 10:39:22