| Just What Autumn Needs |
At Black Rat |
| One Man Two Guv'nors- Black RAT Productions, Blackwood Miners’ Institute & RCT Theatres , Aberystwyth Arts Centre , October 16, 2017 |
The nights are drawing in and the storms are a-gathering. Black Rat's tour, the biggest this autumn, is just what is needed. Richard Bean's adroit updating of Goldoni is well-known. When the author was in Cardiff he let slip that it had at the time a box office gross of £40,000,000. But for those who come to it blind Richard Tunley's production delivers an early surprise. Caryl Morgan has been a regular on this site but her role here is certainly no Ophelia. It is a spoiler to say other than that she does remarkable things with her voice. The versatility of actors never ceases to delight. But she is not alone. That Phylip Harries can play a guitar is no surprise. But then in the second act he whips out a harmonica and makes very presentable bitter-sweet music from it. The music is integral to the show. Richard Tunley has expanded Black Rat to a nice company of nine but a small Valleys company is not a national theatre. When it comes to the band the actors have got to do it and they do not get a day extra outside the three weeks for rehearsal. Chris Tummings is on washboard and James Lawrence extracts beautiful tones from his lead guitar. Lee Gilbert is lead vocalist; the quality of the harmonies is so good to suggest they are old mates who have been gigging together for years. Richard Bean is a prolific dramatist who is first and foremost a craftsman. The transposition to 1963, the year in which everything pivoted, is artful. The music is skiffle hang-over but it allows a joke on some advice given to a bunch of youngsters playing in Hamburg. There is an ongoing joke about identical twins, Reggie and Ronnie, played by the Harries-Tummings duo. Bean lets in the odd bit of sly innuendo. The firm of Lee Gilbert's dodgy lawyer is called Dangle, Berry and Bush. There is a late point in which Gareth John Bale has to explain away at high speed a series of absences of made-up persons. Every diagnosed and described disease denoting a dire demise and due death is designated by a determining descriptor. The letter “d” dominates. Bale's Francis was not himself present but diverted in the diligently discharging of his daily domestic duties, as directed, to Didcot and Dagenham. This is a piece of verbal high jinks in what is a comedy of situation. Comedy requires a strain of heartlessness- it is why we love Mr Bean- Rowan not Richard- over Chaplin. It is in the nature of farce that no human limitation, no incapacity is not up for mockery. Phylip Harries' doubles his Brighton scrap dealer Charlie with first-day-on-the-job waiter Alfie. If a character has a pace-maker it is automatically a comic aid. Alice Strachan's Pauline's most regular line is a wail of pathos “I don't understand.” The joke is that posturing thesp-fiancee, Daniel Miles' Alan, is explaining things that are of a base straightforwardness. The doling out of physical punishment is rapid. Male private parts are there for the taking and the scrunching. James Lawrence's Stanley, aka an impromptu named Dustin Pubsign, a conscienceless murderer, treats Francis in a Manuel-esque manner. The heart of “One Man Two Guvnors” is the high-speed opening of doors and the dual demands made on Francis. Gareth John Bale romps through the role, his confusion reaching its peak when he enters into first argument, then battle with himself. Bean's treatment is confident enough to allow a touch or two of jokey meta-theatre. At the opening of act two Francis muses over what his character motivation is to be. His ravening hunger of the first half has been sated. Purpose is established in the form of Sarah-Jayne Hopkins' racy Dolly and the mechanisms for extracting the cash for the fifty pound airfare to Majorca. Bean's sense of period is sewn in lightly. 1963 is the era when Porthcawl began to be forsaken for the Mediterranean. Bobby Moore is at the helm of the England team. A joke about the police has an echo of Orton's Inspector Truscott. These Runyonesque rogues have malice but also an innocence to them. The mood is set by Anna Marie Hainsworth's design of pastel-coloured sticks of seaside rock. Black Rat has worked hard on delivering year on year a good autumn night out. Its reward in Aberystwyth has been the biggest audience yet who manifestly adored the show. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
This review has been read 2083 times There are 21 other reviews of productions with this title in our database:
|
