THE PEOPLE NEXT DOOR. To 24 August.
Edinburgh - Fringe
THE PEOPLE NEXT DOOR
by Henry Adam
Traverse Theatre To 24 August 2003
Tuer-Sun Various times daily - check with theatre
Runs 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS: 0131 228 1404
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 August
Transfers to Theatre Royal Stratford East
4 September-4 October 2003
Mon-Sat 7.45pm
Audio-described 26 September
BSL Signed 27 September
TICKETS: 020 8534 0310
Funny and humane - let's hope the Traverse can come up with several more such in the next 12 months.Nigel is a nice guy - a friendly person, a helpful neighbour, someone who just wants to get on with the world and roll his own. Which might be OK if he weren't ethnic, a housing association tenant - so whose front-door is it anyway? - and hadn't a (half-)brother somewhere in the world wanted by the authorities.
Without losing touch with his characters, Henry Adam, revealing a strong streak of humour, manages to make merry with almost every social problem you could think of for the soulless flat-block cannily depicted in Miriam Buether's two-level set.
In this setting, it's no surprise there's violence, break-ins, framing of the innocent and an explosion. OK, so most of it's from Joe Duttine's detective, under pressure from his line-management and quite a nice fellow when you get to know him - until you next annoy him. And the explosion's not terrorism, just - more realistically - a problem with the gas supply.
If Duttine comically yet believably mixes the pressured executive with a literal idea of police force, Fraser Ayres gives a beautifully moving account of Nigel. First seen trying to persuade himself into a more ethnically fitting identity as Salif - 'I don't know what it mean but tha' be my name now bwa' - he spends the rest of the time more efficiently comforting old Mrs Mac upstairs, teenage Marco who hangs around him in preference to a promiscuous mother. And the restless, agitated Phil, whose tight-packed worry contrasts Nigel's physical fidgets and calm of soul.
At various times Nigel's flat becomes an oasis for all the characters seeking some sort of asylum: Marco's invited in, Mrs Mac uses the previous tenant's key to enter brandishing a protective poker, while Phil does a one-man break-in.
Phil's references to Nigel's personal vulnerability - his special needs (not something anyone else seems aware of or bothered about) - points up the truth that human intellgiences seems to increase in direct proportiuon to an aaccompanying self-centredness. Central to Ayres' success is his acute combination of generosity with vulnerability. But he's low on anxiety, instead calming that of others.
Roxana Silbert's production fairly fizzes along, but always has unsentinental room for Nigel's humanity and others' individuality. With strong work byJimmy Akingbola and Eileen McCallum, showing the different confusions of youth and age, the Traverse has come up with a Festival peach.
Nigel: Fraser Ayres
Marco: Jimmy Akingbola
Phil: Joe Duttine
Mrs Mac: Eileen McCallum Colette O' Neil at Stratford East
Director: Roxana Silbert
Designer: Miriam Buether
Lighting: Neil Austin
Sound: Matt McKenzie
Fight director: Terry King
2003-08-05 11:34:27