TRANSMISSIONS: Birmingham Rep, New Writing: 2002

TRANSMISSIONS: 4 New Writers at Birmingham Rep.

JUST A BLOKE: David Watson
OFF THE VAN: Kimberley Andrews
DEATH, CUSTARD TARTS, BALLROOM DANCING AND BROKEN HEARTS: Chantal Hopkins
EXTREME MEASURES: Gurpreet Rheel

Review: Rod Dungate, 12, 13 July 2002

Four new writers – concluding a shop window festival of new writing talent.
There's a lot of quality writing by young people going on – at least at Birmingham Rep and on the evidence of the Birmingham Rep's third TRANSMISSIONS season. Some 24 young writers have had their scripts staged in workshop productions – JUST A BLOKE: OFF THE VAN: DEATH, CUSTARD TARTS, BALLROOM DANCING AND BROKEN HEARTS and EXTREME MEASURES concluded the festival.

Gurpreet Rheel's EXTREME MEASURES is, it turns out, the fourth episode of a serial thriller (the three previous parts having been staged earlier during TRANSMISSIONS.) It's a quite deliciously ridiculous romp, a wild pastiche of Hollywood 30s and 40s thrillers painted in broad comic strokes. Rheel is a young woman with an irreverent sense of humour.

The other three plays are one-act plays, each demonstrating the unsettlingly dark world-view of the writers: plays centre around dysfunctional groups of people.

JUST A BLOKE's central character is paranoid Jake, hiding from the world around him, communicating with others in chat-rooms but finding flesh and blood people more difficult: he keeps the world at bay obsessively marking maths papers. The play could usefully be shortened (perhaps shortening some of the long moments played as direct address) but there are, too, moments of great insight. Particularly memorable is Jake's description of how to get your art taken seriously by those in a position to help. The greatest invention is Jake's brother Nathan. This is a white boy who creates his street credibility with a lot of black street language: Nathan's language is rich, complex, multi-layered and beautifully realised, head-on, by James Daffern.

OFF THE VAN is a highly comedic look at two mother-daughter relationships: Andrews's message is 'like mother like daughter' and she examines why this might be so. The world that surrounds the play would seem to be as alien (and alienating) as that of Burgess/Kubrick's CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Andrews tantalises us with a ray of hope, however, mother Denise's new relationship with the Van Man might, just might, have a future.

Chantal Hopkins's DEATH AND CUSTARD TARTS (etc) is an illusively tragic and quirky play working in three time layers at once. Elderly couple Penelope and Roger reminisce about past events, hazy details are items of dispute: at the same time a compere introduces end of the pier acts, while half a double act (dressed as a budgie) mentally disintegrates. The past (as in Ibsen) always, disturbingly, catches up with you. I'd've loved to have seen more of the couple Roger and Penelope, gently, touchingly realised by Laurence Saunders and Therese Collins: these characters ensure the play has a heart that can engage us.

Just a Bloke
Lisa: Seema Bowri
Jake: Dan Hagley
Nathan: James Daffern

Director: Noel Greig

Off the Van
Charmaine: Natasha Gordon
Gemma: Kimberley Hale
Denise: Joanne Moseley
Tracey: Alison Carney
Van Man: Guy Rhys
Daz: Paul Magson
Tom: Christopher Penn

Director: Caroline Jester

Death and Custard Tarts
Drunkard: Guy Rhys
Compere: Paul Magson
Penelope: Therese Collins
Roger: Laurence Saunders

Director: Carl Miller

2002-07-17 09:55:56