London.
THEATRE UNCUT
Young Vic (The Clare) 66 The Cut SE 1 8LZ To 17 November 2012.
7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm.
Runs 2hr One interval.
TICKETS: 0207 922 2922.
www.youngvic.org
Review: William Russell 14 November.
Brief but blunt encounters.
Theatre Uncut is a voluntary organisation set up in 2010 to exploit theatre as a tool for positive social change. It stages tiny playlets which have a message allegedly responding to the current political situation in the countries of their writers.
The second programme, which was the one I saw, consisted of six pieces of varying quality but all very well performed. They were not quite as revolutionary or exciting as Emma Callander, Theatre Uncut’s Co-Artistic Director, who introduced the programme, appeared to think – indeed, one was sometimes reminded of the sketches Harold Pinter wrote in the days when intimate review was in its death throes. But they were all watchable.
The first, Kieran Hurley’s London 2012: Glasgow, was a hilarious piece of buck-passing by the organisers of the publicity for the Olympic Games over that faux pas in Glasgow with the Korean flag – there was a lovely sequence about the colon between 2012 and Glasgow described by the big boss insisting it should be there as “colonising.” Phil Jupitus as the boss and Thom Tuck as his sidekick had a whale of a time.
The Breakout by Anders Lustgarten was a nice reflection on the impossibility of escaping the familiar as two inmates of a prison debated whether to escape through a sudden hole in the wall or stay where they were, and in Clara Brennan’s Spine Holli Dempsey was delightful as a girl discovering the power of the written word.
The Neil LaBute playlet, although well acted, rather stated the obvious, and the other two, while nicely done, did not seem to add up to very much. If the evening was meant to be revolutionary the revolution was happening somewhere else. But there are 16 playlets in repertory so maybe the others are more cutting-edge and will have been where it was at.
London 2012: Glasgow
by Kieran Hurley.
Cast: Phil Jupitus, Thom Tuck.
Director Emma Callander.
The Breakout
by Anders Lustgarten
Cast: Gemma Johnson, Nadia Clifford.
Director Kirsty Housley.
The Birth of Violence
by Marco Canale
Cast: John McKeever.
Director Kirsty Housley.
In the Beginning
by Neil LaBute
Cast: Gary Beadle, Tobi Bakare.
Director Emma Callander.
Spine
by Carla Brennan.
Cast: Holli Dempsey.
Director: Hannah Price.
A Chance Encounter
by Mohammad Al Attar.
Cast: Philip Arditti, Raad Rawi.
Director Kirsty Housley.
Designer: Carla Goodman.
Lighting: Pablo Fernandez Paz.
Sound: Ella Washington.
2012-11-16 18:43:04
