THE DIFFICULT UNICORN. To 4 January.

London

THE DIFFICULT UNICORN
by David Cregan

Southwark Playhouse To 4 January 2003
10am 18 December
2pm 21,23,27-28 December, 2-4 January
7pm 19-21,23 27-28,30 December 2-4 January
Runs 1hr 35min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7620 3494
boxoffice@southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
Review Timothy Ramsden 17 December

A quirkily offbeat, gentle comedy.Not many Christmas shows offer a new internet link, but David Cregan's highly individual piece presents us with the prospect of celestial assistance via www.unicornhelp.com. It's young Harry who invokes this fabulous aid via an office computer, for his stressed-out bank clerk father George. It's the start for what is possibly the only show this season set partly beyond the moon, and for the rest in Peckham.

George isn't exactly a Scrooge – that's more Mr Potter (Rhys McConnachie doubling as a slicked-down Gradgrind who insists on smiles all round, to be relaxed only during breaks). But for all Brian Protheroe's genial manner (in an excellent comic performance) the curse of greed lies in him. He's every lotto rollover aspirant and mega-prize competition hopeful rolled into one, with his empty expectation of £2 million arriving in the post.

Though the plot's slight, Cregan devises a series of amusing situations. But it's the oddities of character that interest him - people with outlandish ideas insouciantly expressed: Auntie Sharon, the lusty pensioner, Stanley the golden unicorn horn-polisher who can find no reason to enjoy the Elysian Fields once he's experienced Tesco, or Tracey from the office who refuses Harry's keen advances.

The script has ways with words you'd never have thought existed. Auntie Sharon's forever trying to tie Harry and Tracey as an 'item', but Tracey refuses to be itemised. That's a simple example. At its most serious, there's George's Freudian slippage between 'happy' (what the unicorn's come to make him) – and 'rich', which for him means the same.

There's a leap into the absurd with George's attempt to sever the unicorn horn for filthy lucre and the family sprouting their own facial extensions. What's beautiful on a unicorn becomes, on them, a deformity matching their inward impulses (is it accidental George's wife is a parking warden?). The resolution's as sudden and magical as in any fairytale

It's all a contrast to last year's Southwark Christmas show, the emotionally charged, local-set Charlie Lavender, but it makes a splendid contrast – both show the value of an independent-minded, intimate theatre on the Christmas producing scene.

Tracey: Carla Du Bois
Mary Jackson: Deborah Farrington
Auntie Sharon: Darlene Johnson
Terry: Rhys McConnachie
Harry Jackson: Jonathan Poeck
Stanley: Tim Preece
George Jackson: Brian Protheroe

Director: Jane Howell
Designer: Sophie Jump
Lighting: David Holmes
Sound: Rich Walsh
Music: Brian Protheroe
Movement: Geraldine Stephenson

2002-12-18 00:52:31