THE SHOP AT SLY CORNER. To 12 October.

Pitlochry

THE SHOP AT SLY CORNER
by Edward Percy

Pitlochry Festival Theatre In rep to 12 October 2004
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Wed & Sat 2pm
Runs 2hr 40min Two intervals

TIICKETS: 01796 484626
boxoffice@pitlochry.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 31 May

Guaranteeing at least a thrill an hour as the ever-predictable action drags its slow length along.Nothing dates faster than the popular. Edward Percy's 1945 crime-play ('thriller' pushes the Trade Descriptions Act) keeps its pace by assuming character types and behaviours which have changed with society, fashion and the genre's development. Pace has also hotted up, on stage and TV.

Here is a London crammed with dark corners, well away from West End audiences' bright lights. It's a city believably crammed with anonymous establishments like Descius Heiss's shady (in all senses) emporium, with its backroom filled with dark dealings.

Yet there's plenty that could plug into the modern mind. Heiss, receiver of precious metals, is effectively an asylum-seeker, making his way in English society.

In his way, Heiss is as middle-class as the pure-blood Anglo-types his respectable daughter's brought to the shop's back-parlour. Hard-working, cultured, honest if determined in his dealings with thieves. And devoted to Margaret, determined she'll make it as a concert violinist.

Pitlochry's production does well enough by the surface action. Martyn James is suitably sinister in the outer acts, contrastingly enfeebled in the middle as blackmail takes its toll. Jacqueline Dutoit brings an intriguing calm to the polite, concerned wife who turns not a moral hair as his accomplice.

But the emotions driving these people are never explored. We know of Descius's early sufferings because he tells us of them. But they don't inform his behaviour. His devotion to Margaret is not reflected in intensity of voice or body language that would make it live. They might be third-cousins twice removed for all the current there is between them.

Nor does Emily Pennant-Rea suggest she's ever going to do anything significant with the fiddle she carries around. Before a broadcast recital - this in 1945 when BBC microphones were far less familiar than nowadays - she shows no evidence of a performer's nerve or temperamant. She might be on the way out to buy some tea-bags.

Percy doesn't help, having her refer to "The Meistersingers" (sic). In a home soaked with Bach and Brahms, the macaronic element of the title might just pass - but the final 's', from a professional musician? Never.

At the time, the author was a Tory MP. Given the patronised Cockney 'ousekeeper - all daft and drunk (Janet Michael, dignified but wasted) - one can only be glad Labour won the 1945 election.

Adrian Rees' aptly crowded setting, which eventually mirrors Heiss's secretive life, won a round of applause. Mark Pritchard's lighting deserves one even more, with its atmospheric pools of light, dark corners and emphasis of significant images in the action.

Descius Heiss: Martyn James
Archiue Fellowes: Samuel James
Margaret Heiss: Emily Pennant-Rea
Joan Deal: Helen Logan
Matthilde Heiss: Jacqueline Dutoit
Mrs Catt: Janet Miochael
Robert Graham: Guy Fearon
Coder Morris: Harry Ward
Steve Hubbard: Conrad Hornby
John Elliot: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Director: John Durnin
Designer: Adrian Rees
Lighting: Mark Pritchard
Costume: Emma Donovan
Voice coach: Alex Gillon
Fight director: Raymond Short
Assistant director: Kate Nelson

2004-06-05 15:26:39