Theatre review: Dangerous
Above The Stag is the theatre where, a few months ago, I saw a riotous musical adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs. Now they present Tom Smith's Dangerous, a gay version of Les Liaisons Dangerouses. The only problem is, this time it's not a spoof. It might have been interesting to see a take on gay sexual politics in 18th Century France, but like Cruel Intentions this is a modernised version of the story. Changing the time and gender has left the motivations of the scheming Alexander and Marcus (Matthew Blake and Luke Harris) a bit vague, and sometimes the dialogue is overwritten - I did wonder if these occasional lurches into flowery language was a deliberate nod by Smith to the source material, but if so Tim McArthur's production doesn't acknowledge it. In fact as McArthur also directed the recent Maurice, I have to wonder how much responsibility he has for something the two productions share, namely a cast who look incredibly uncomfortable on stage. Only Jamie Hannon as Daniel seems as if he believes what he's saying, although Blake also manages some naturalism in his more emotional scenes, despite most of the performance being typified by high camp. Christopher Rorke as a Seff Effriken trainee priest¹ is very awkward but the dubious honours have to go to Jon R Harrison, whose entire performance consists of staring ahead of him, giving a big gummy grin, and looking as if he has no idea what he's doing on a stage with people watching him. In fact I'd say he missed his West End calling - he should have been one of the stooges in The Fantasticks - he would have been much more convincing as someone who wasn't supposed to be on stage than the two actors we saw last week.
In order to give the idea that this is all a game to these people, Fi Russell's set is designed as a giant board game. And what's the sexiest, most dangerous game imaginable? Scrabble. Apparently. It kinda says it all about a production that despite aFULL-FRONTAL MALE NUDITY ALERT!from no less than four cast members, feels utterly sexless, and definitely not dangerous. While I'm in full bitch mode, can I point out a number of my pet hates that reared their ugly heads: Half-hearted sound design (during the interval a single track played on a loop,) under-rehearsed scene changes, and is it terribly snobbish of me to say that a number of the big words got mispronounced? Come to think of it, there didn't seem to be any agreement among the cast on how one character's name was meant to be pronounced. I know pub theatres work under ridiculous pressure but I've seen the heights they can reach, so I get irked when people don't really try.
Dangerous by Tom Smith is booking until the 11th of July at Above The Stag Theatre.
¹characters meeting him for the first time invariably call him "father," but designer Fi Russell has him in "plain clothes" throughout
In order to give the idea that this is all a game to these people, Fi Russell's set is designed as a giant board game. And what's the sexiest, most dangerous game imaginable? Scrabble. Apparently. It kinda says it all about a production that despite aFULL-FRONTAL MALE NUDITY ALERT!from no less than four cast members, feels utterly sexless, and definitely not dangerous. While I'm in full bitch mode, can I point out a number of my pet hates that reared their ugly heads: Half-hearted sound design (during the interval a single track played on a loop,) under-rehearsed scene changes, and is it terribly snobbish of me to say that a number of the big words got mispronounced? Come to think of it, there didn't seem to be any agreement among the cast on how one character's name was meant to be pronounced. I know pub theatres work under ridiculous pressure but I've seen the heights they can reach, so I get irked when people don't really try.
Dangerous by Tom Smith is booking until the 11th of July at Above The Stag Theatre.
¹characters meeting him for the first time invariably call him "father," but designer Fi Russell has him in "plain clothes" throughout