Theatre review: The Hostage
Despite it being relatively local I hadn't been to the Southwark Playhouse until last month's The Rivals, but I think I might be going there a lot in future, partly down to their interesting pricing policy: For every performance, a certain amount of tickets are cheap, but once they're sold the price goes up, and then when there's a limited amount left it goes up again. So basically if you keep an eye on their programme and book things well in advance you get a better price than if you wait until the show becomes popular, so tonight Brendan Behan's The Hostage only cost me £8. The Playhouse is a railway arch under London Bridge station (you occasionally hear trains rumbling overhead) and Morgan Large's set design makes good use of the atmospheric (and cold) setting. Although considering the seating layout meant more than 2/3 of the audience had to cross the stage to get to their (unreserved) seats I was surprised the ushers weren't a bit more proactive, especially with helping latecomers find a seat. One usher stood in a corner for when audience members wandered down the wrong way, I'm not quite sure why she wasn't, instead, standing further forward to show them the right way to go.
Anyway everyone did eventually get a seat so we can get to the play, and a pretty odd one at that. It's Ireland in 1960 and former IRA man Pat now owns a small brothel, but he still has links with them and has to do a "favour:" A young terrorist is about to be executed; in retaliation the IRA have kidnapped an English soldier, and plan to shoot him just after the execution. The soldier is being brought to the brothel to be hidden for the night. So far so harrowing, except for the most part Behan's story is played for laughs, with frequent song and dance interludes. The cast are all very good, centring around Gary Lilburn's disillusioned Pat and Stephanie Fayerman as his wife Mag. Among the comic grotesques that surround them I especially liked Rhiannon Oliver's Miss Gilchrist, a woman on a Christian mission of her own devising.
Rather excitingly the hostage himself is played by the very pretty Ben James-Ellis, who was one of D-Boys' rivals on the Joseph TV show and who I saw as Link Larkin in Hairspray. Sadly he keeps his clothes on, the best you get is a couple of shirt buttons undone, but at least I was in the front row so at times he was close enough to count the chest-hairs. Which I totally did not do by the way. Anyway he's very good as well - it's a bit ironic that a Yorkshireman is playing a character who according to the script grew up pretty much round the corner from the theatre, but he's pretty decent with the accent; judging from some attempts I've heard, I think cockney is harder to do than a lot of people give it credit for, but although there's the occasional falter there's no hint of the Dick Van Dykes from Ellis.
Although enjoyable in its own right, I never quite managed to balance the subject matter with the manner in which it was told. However I did have an unusual distraction - I was on an aisle that the actors frequently used for entrances and exits, often quick ones. In small theatres I've often had to pull my legs back in a hurry to avoid tripping the actors up, but tonight despite me holding my legs under the seat throughout, and even (thanks to the woman on my right shuffling along to give me more room) inching away from the bench corner as much as possible, I was getting knocked all the time and two of the actors even collided with me (tragically Mr Ellis was not one of them.) The perils of a studio theatre I guess, but perhaps having half my attention offstage to see if I was about to be crashed into by someone doing a jig meant I couldn't quite lose myself into the play's odd world.
The Hostage by Brendan Behan is booking until the 20th of February at Southwark Playhouse.
Anyway everyone did eventually get a seat so we can get to the play, and a pretty odd one at that. It's Ireland in 1960 and former IRA man Pat now owns a small brothel, but he still has links with them and has to do a "favour:" A young terrorist is about to be executed; in retaliation the IRA have kidnapped an English soldier, and plan to shoot him just after the execution. The soldier is being brought to the brothel to be hidden for the night. So far so harrowing, except for the most part Behan's story is played for laughs, with frequent song and dance interludes. The cast are all very good, centring around Gary Lilburn's disillusioned Pat and Stephanie Fayerman as his wife Mag. Among the comic grotesques that surround them I especially liked Rhiannon Oliver's Miss Gilchrist, a woman on a Christian mission of her own devising.
Rather excitingly the hostage himself is played by the very pretty Ben James-Ellis, who was one of D-Boys' rivals on the Joseph TV show and who I saw as Link Larkin in Hairspray. Sadly he keeps his clothes on, the best you get is a couple of shirt buttons undone, but at least I was in the front row so at times he was close enough to count the chest-hairs. Which I totally did not do by the way. Anyway he's very good as well - it's a bit ironic that a Yorkshireman is playing a character who according to the script grew up pretty much round the corner from the theatre, but he's pretty decent with the accent; judging from some attempts I've heard, I think cockney is harder to do than a lot of people give it credit for, but although there's the occasional falter there's no hint of the Dick Van Dykes from Ellis.
Although enjoyable in its own right, I never quite managed to balance the subject matter with the manner in which it was told. However I did have an unusual distraction - I was on an aisle that the actors frequently used for entrances and exits, often quick ones. In small theatres I've often had to pull my legs back in a hurry to avoid tripping the actors up, but tonight despite me holding my legs under the seat throughout, and even (thanks to the woman on my right shuffling along to give me more room) inching away from the bench corner as much as possible, I was getting knocked all the time and two of the actors even collided with me (tragically Mr Ellis was not one of them.) The perils of a studio theatre I guess, but perhaps having half my attention offstage to see if I was about to be crashed into by someone doing a jig meant I couldn't quite lose myself into the play's odd world.
The Hostage by Brendan Behan is booking until the 20th of February at Southwark Playhouse.