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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Talking Heads
Swan Theatre Amateur Company
Swan Theatre Studio, Worcester
**** MONOLOGUES are as old as Western theatre
itself, the earliest dramas staged by the ancient Greeks with one actor
and a chorus and, more than two millennia on, it is still a powerful
dramatic device. Alan Bennett’s
Talking Heads
for BBC TV, s But it is familiar mundane trivia, attitudes,
ideas, people, relatives we know. Graham Whittaker is what in my youth used to be
called a mummy’s boy. Middle-aged, mild-mannered, inoffensive and living
with his mother, tidying, cleaning cooking, taking a sort of comfort in
a life of dull routine.
We discover, slowly, that his repressed
homosexuality is bottled up inside and he went to a day centre because
he suffers mild mental problems – his mother seeing his tablets as the
solution to any problem. In
A chip in the sugar
Graham’s ordinary life is thrown into disarray when his mother meets an
old flame, Frank Turnbull and romance blossoms, with Graham becoming
increasingly jealous. It all comes to a head when Frank not only
proposes marriage but suggests that Graham, who he is slowly pushing
away from his mother, should move out and live in a hostel. To add to
Graham’s anxiety, he has also become paranoid that someone is watching
him from the street outside. John Lines is a thoroughly convincing Graham
relating his tale of trouble with unwitting gentle humour and a
creditable Yorkshire accent. He shows no signs of happiness or even
contentment, just acceptance of his lot in life and frustration and fear
of the upheaval. His mother is getting ready for her honeymoon in
Teneriffe and his life is unravelling - until he discovers Mr Turnbull’s
terrible secret and he reveals it in gleeful triumph. The bombshell ends the Turnbull romance of
course, and the status quo is restored; mum’s spark of romance and
chance of happiness in her twilight years has been snuffed out and
Graham is once more the dutiful son with the pair clinging once more to
each other and their mundane routine. Her big chance
introduces us to Lesley, a wannabe actress. She has had a few TV roles
as an extra in programmes such as
Crossroads and was and extra in a Roman
Polanski film but the big She plays the girlfriend of a baddie, shooting
him with a speargun in the dramatic finale. Lesley, not the brightest
star in the industry, doesn’t seem to realise that she is in a soft porn
film, perhaps she is just too desperate to be an actress.
We hear her arguments against her character
Travis first going topless, then after being given motivation for that,
we hear the same arguments again for the bikini bottoms coming off, with
Guther, the director, once more providing the motivation that nakedness
somehow signifies contempt for her drug running boyfriend. Even the fact
the half-naked policemen in the death scene touches her up before
heading off to be filmed in bed with his girlfriend she rationalises as
some sort of morality tale that it is best to be with the one you love. Gerda Tvaronaitė brings an added dimension to the
role. Hailing from Lithuania she is a student of screenwriting and
journalism at Worcester University and it took a while to attune to her
accent It is not easy to perform at all in a foreign
language but to take on a long monologue commanding the stage in a solo
performance takes real courage and she did a sterling job – particularly
as a bout of laryngitis had disrupted rehearsals for the past couple of
weeks. Then
there was Doris and A Cream cracker
under the settee,
The fall has
left her unable to walk, no doubt she has suffered a broken hip or
pelvis, and alone and injured she tries to attract attention. She
finally reaches the front door and a chance of help, but help might mean
being sent to Stafford House and its smell of pee – so dying alone and
in pain does not seem such a bad option after all.
Marc Dugmore,
the director has used a simple set, with minor changes for each of the
three stories which works well in the intimate studio atmosphere.
Beautifully written and well-acted the talking heads are
well
worth a listen. To 16-04-16. Roger
Clarke 12-04-16 |
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ix
in 1988 and another six a decade later, were a landmark in the genre,
included in GCSE and A level syllabuses; a single actor speaking
directly to the camera about what, in truth, is often mundane trivia.
break has never arrived – until she lands, or perhaps more accurately,
tumbles into the part of Travis in a German low budget production set on
a yacht.
left
there by that home help Zulema who only half cleans no matter what she
says. It was cleaning what Zulema had never finished that caused the
fall. Doris is 75 and house proud, not that she can do much these days.
She’s a widow since her husband Wilfred died. You suspect he might have
been glad to go to escape the constant nagging. Her constant fear is
being moved the Stafford House the local care home where everyone and
everything “smells of pee”.