THE MENTALISTS. To 3 April.

Exeter

THE MENTALISTS
by Richard Bean

Northcott Theatre To 3 April 2004
Eves Mon-Sat 7.30 p.m. Mat Sat 3 April 2.30 p.m.
Runs 1hr 40min One interval

TICKETS: 01392 493493
www.northcott-theatre.co.uk
Review: Hazel Brown 24 March 2004

Cranky ideas abound in this tense and dark comedy.Two middle-aged men, Ted and Morrie, arrive in a scruffy hotel room to make a video. At first, it is unclear just what sort of video this is to be, but it emerges that Ted has absorbed the ideas of Fred Skinner, the behavioural psychologist, and wants to share his vision of an ordered and polite society by selling a £29.99 video and recruiting 1,000 people to create his utopian society.

Ted, a fifty something fleet car manager, played with edgy, barely controlled anger by Peter Jonfield, is a man on the edge of sanity some of his ideas are plausible and even visionary, but his behaviour is deeply suspect. Morrie, a hairdresser with a lascivious lifestyle, who has no doubt made some extremely dodgy videos in his time, is acted with lugubrious, heavy humour by John Pierce Jones.

These two middle-aged men embark on the enterprise with jokey give and take, boozing, smoking and like a darker version of Pete and Dud, talking about universal male obsessions: women and what they have done to them, football and the peripheral vision of Bobby Charlton, the size and shape of penises, as well as the scenario for a perfect murder and the opportunity it might offer to disappear into another life.

Having recorded six hours of video, Morrie sets out to define exactly what it is that Ted intends to do, as it becomes increasingly obvious that Ted is falling apart. His credit cards are serially rejected, he jumps each time someone comes to the hotel door, he shouts at the telephone and eventually collapses in a jagged heap at the bottom of the bed. As Morrie tenderly attempts to restore his friend's equilibrium, the sad and horrific truth slowly emerges and throws the utopian cranky ideas into dark contrast with the reality of Ted's life.

Ted: Peter Jonfield
Morrie: John Pierce Jones

Director: Ben Crocker
Designer: Kit Surrey
Lighting: David Holmes
Voice Coach: Tim Charrington
Video Sequence: James Hewlett

2004-03-25 22:51:20