THE EDGE OF DARKNESS. To 19 July.
Tour
THE EDGE OF DARKNESS
by Brian Clemens
Tour to 26 July 2003
Richmond Theatre to 12 July Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm
TICKETS 020 8940 0088 (Richmond booking fee applies)
www.richmondtheatre.net (Richmond)
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 July at Richmond Theatre
Amnesia and anarchy fail to combust in another example of the unthrilling thriller.An edge-of-seat mystery stalks through this play. Not how could a debtor, escaping his creditors in 1900, afford such a roomy house as Newpalm Productions have provided for Brian Clemens' play. Nor how anyone as inefficient at escaping the bailiffs as Max Cranwell every creditor seems to know where to address their overdue bills can survive and plot as Clemens has him do.
It's not even a matter of where the plot has got to it evades us most of the time while 'atmosphere' and sudden shock lighting changes with atonal music stand in. Till eventually plot comes tumbling like a rattling skeleton from a crammed-tight cupboard.
No, it's that enigma which haunts productions in larger theatres today. What about the amplification? Why do feet stomp loudly on the wood floor, or coal fall into a scuttle with the force of an avalanche? Is it artificially-induced decibels that create the disjunction between vocal effort and output? Or simply disengagement by the actors from their paper-thin roles?
Clare McGlinn hops and skips as if trying to convince someone of youthful buoyancy that's punctured when a knife or picture of a murdered man from the past crop up (they do so with wearying repetition). Chris Donnelly has an anonymity of manner that suggests his real identity could be as undisclosed to him as it is most of the time to us. Janet Walker plays her maid for the stereotype it is she knows what's right, all right, if she does get some of 'er words wrung.
As the respectable-looking, unsurprising wrongdoers, Tony Scannell has the relaxed, mannered realism of a James Mason in deep-cover mode, while Liza Goddard's starring role in the publicity compensates for her neutrality in the play.
It's not the actors' responsibility. Goddard's is a non-role. These are good performers working efficiently. Clemens' script catches the flavour of late-Victorian formality without becoming over-cluttered. But his dialogue does nothing to inspire actor or audience. Expression is flat, every idea reacquaints us with received notions of Victorian England. So that the play brings us, eventually, less to the plot's dully-reported cliff-edge culmination, than to the edge of entertainment despair.
Penny: Janet Walker
Hardy: Chris Donnelly
Laura Cranwell: Liza Goddard
Max Cranwell: Tony Scannell
Emma: Clare McGlinn
Livago: Jerry Lindop
Policeman: John Westwood
Director: Howard Ross
Design: Newpalm Productions
Lighting: Mark Alexander
Costume: Midland Costume
2003-07-08 17:44:40