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On a journey of discovery: Shea
Davis as Ross, Carl Au as Sim, Faaiz Mbelizi as Kenny and Fred Haig as
Blake Picture: Robert Day Ostrich Boys
Coventry Belgrade B2
***** THIS is
a show it’s impossible to rate too highly. How does one start? The text
is terrific - and funny, and sometimes touching - from start to finish.
The sheer quality of Carl Miller’s new adaptation
of Keith Gray’s scintillating story, geared to all parts being taken by
just four actors, takes one’s breath away. Endlessly entertaining, it’s punchy and vital and
gloriously witty; and the youthfulness of the performers calls to mind
that it was first seen, in an earlier (very different) adaptation,
staged by performers - lots of them - of school age. So who are our likely lads, whose quick-fire
conversation in a host of shifting accents makes this whole evening so
electrifying? One of the four, Ross
(a wonderfully created role by an ever versatile Shea Davis) is dead,
from a recent road accident. But he presides over the whole evening like
the Ghost from Hamlet,
manipulating events with striking subtlety. The other three, Blake, Sim
and Kenny, are his friends, who are conveying Ross’s ashes up to north
Scotland - to Ross, in fact. There is a hint later on that each feels he
has sealed, or hastened, Ross’s fate in some way - but avoided the
truth, like (as they put it at the end) ostriches with their heads in
the sand - and the awkward possibility that he in fact committed
suicide. What we see - after some entertaining
altercations with parents or schoolmasters - is a journey - in a sense,
one of growing up. The dialogue is blissfully amusing and brilliantly
quick-fire - except for some magical touches when the troupe drop their
voices and some riveting moments when the hush drops into total
silence. This is a production
that is stupendously well-moved: both the sizzling stage cavortings and
interactions, every one perfectly crafted with his foursome team by
director Ton
All of this, of course, hinges on the actors.
Faaizi Mbelizi played Kenny - believably - as the nervous, awkward one
who belongs but feels he has to work to keep his place. He remains a
chap while - as they enter Scotland - all three others transform into
Scottish lasses, whose legs-crossed and elegant Edinburgh (or
thereabouts) accents unleash a series of very funny exchanges. At times
it’s hard to be sure which they are - chap or girl - at any moment, as
they quickly and deftly slip from role to role. Though when Sim (the
spectacularly good Carl Au) and Kenny disappear for a necking and grope
behind the scenes, we’re assured that they represent one of each. Fred Haig’s Blake is probably the sensible one,
often putting his finger on the pulse and nursing in his shoulder bag
the unfortunate Ross’s remains. But Carl Au’s Sim is a wondrous creation
- constantly on edge, looking as if he wanted to be a rock star (and
moving with the alacrity of one), by turns bossy, endlessly optimistic
and surprisingly empathetic. Arguably it’s his fidgety, alternating
personality that keeps the show firmly on the road, and his
impersonation of Ross’s dad near the start is just one example of his
unceasing versatility. Ultimately Shea Davis’s ever-present, mysterious
Ross carries the laurels, partly because he provides the most subtly
observed of the girls when the ensemble changes roles, but perhaps
mainly because he is the one who provides - so effectively - the
serious, watchful element to this unfolding mock-saga. On this showing,
Davis has a truly sophisticated sense of stagecraft at his young age
(although they all have); and Graham has worked with him to evince a
presence and role-play of tangible sensitivity. The strange thing about
this excellent, and excellently pieced together, show, is that on
several occasions - a mock funeral procession that felt fearsomely true,
and several of the trysts and jousts and nervy encounters which people
this wonderfully evoked journey, or Ross’s hovering above, or the very
word Ross (Macbeth)
- one felt that this show and the Gray-Miller text had about it a lot of
Shakespeare: Romeo
particularly, but Hamlet,
Richard III,
and so on. It’s famously and often
said (take that as one may) that had Shakespeare been writing today he’d
have been writing for Eastenders.
Well, maybe he’d have written
The Ostrich Boys.
Runs till Saturday 24
September:
www.belgrade.co.uk Roderic Dunnett 13-09-16
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y
Graham - and much abetted by a cleverly mobile stage from designer Jason
Southgate (there’s a lot of fun when the gang divert to Blackpool, and
one brilliantly effective, cleverly lit