THE FLY by Mike Kenny Coliseum Theatre, Oldham to 3 November

Oldham

THE FLY
by Mike Kenny, from George Langelaan's story La Mouche

Coliseum Theatre, Oldham To 3 November 2001

Runs 2hr One interval

TICKETS 0161 624 2829
Review Timothy Ramsden 29 October

Science fantasy story settles uneasily on stage.Sharing – if not dominating – the stage alongside the actors are a large screen and an ever-mobile dancer who signs the text in various insect-suggesting poses. It all gives interest to this curious piece of somewhat dated scientific hokum, in which a matter-transference experiment ends up lodging a fly head on a scientist's body. Curiously his head doesn't seem to have stuck so obviously to the rest of the insect.

There's a pre-experiment sex scene between Andre and his wife Helene, where some routine actorly writhings on a couch are upstaged by a screened montage of thumping machines, trains and tunnels (as always) and an atomic explosion (Did the earth move? No, but it got irradiated). It's typical of this curiously aseptic piece. There's a hint that Francois, the relative who looks after young Philippa when trouble comes, might be a child abuser. Simon Startin adds a gesture and a sinister vocal inflexion here and there to the hint in the text but the question's left unresolved.

Set in Francophone Canada, French names and titles are retained but the voices are flat English. There's a mid-century look to the setting, including the kind of old sci-fi laboratory equipment that's unavoidably amateurish and laughable now. Giving Andre's fly-eye view of things through projections from a hand-held camera only emphasises the quaintness of the rest.

It might just work if there was more life in the acting, but though no-one is less than adequate there seems little excitement in the performances. Each character is taken routinely through their paces, with little attempt to move beyond simple characterisation.

Multi-media is tough to do; it's a balancing act where the different elements are inclined to veer off their own way. Isolte Avila's black-clad signer has the energy lacking elsewhere, but the theatricality of her performance doesn't seem enmeshed in an overall production style.

Signer/Dancer Isolte Avila
Andre Craig Cheetham
Inspector Charas John Elkington
Philippa Rebecca Little
Helene Sara Poyzer
Housekeeper Karen Spicer
Francois Simon Startin

Director Garry Robson
Designers Felicity and Juliet Shillingford
Lighting Phil Davies
Sound John Morton/ Anna Holly
Digital Artist Mark Haig

2001-11-01 03:17:29