They fought the law... Time, Tristan Bates Theatre

If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime…

Before the play starts we hear various South London voices talking about various capers including a poor fella who tried to crown a turf accountant with a cosh hidden in a newspaper only for it to fly out as the News of the World landed with a whimper and not a bang.

Michael Head’s new play is based on tales from the underground not unrelated to those his Grandad used to tell; stories from an age of criminal chivalry which still fascinates a time, as the older character Waldorf (David Schaal) relates, when there were rules and honour among thieves. Waldorf knew the Richardsons and a code of conduct that rationalised the violent side of their work as the only means of protecting the good people in their lives; family and friends, from men like themselves.

The Code meant that they would only ever battle their own and that innocents would never be harmed. The Krays, he reckons, we “unstable” and too interested in fame and a film star lifestyle whereas the Nashes, Frankie Fraser and the Richardsons followed the rules. It’s hard not to see this as a meditation on working class Britain or make that just Britain; what happened to our loyalties?

David Schaal and Michael Head

Four men meet up in a pub called The End of the World, jokingly referred to as the depths of South London Waldorf would go to get a drink bought for him. They’ve been on the run in various safe houses waiting for the heat to die down after a botched robbery and have met in this boozer owned by Slipps (Michael Head) who is so called because he has, so far, avoided doing any time.

He’s first there of course before being joined by Waldorf, a tall charismatic gangster who is their connection to the golden era of the sixties. The walls of the pub are lined with family photographs and the two reminisce about Slipps’ Uncle Mick as well as his Auntie who Waldorf romanced after Mick passed away. There are also notices of various family misdemeanours including Slipps’ Mother’s banning from Morrisons for illicit stock-taking. Some of these tales are true and from Head’s own family lore and that adds to the telling; this feels like a celebration of the extended family values many of us shared from the sixties and seventies when people mostly lived where they grew up and everybody had at least one dodgy Uncle Les and at least a couple of Aunty Flo’s.

The wise-cracking Fisherman (Daniel O'Reilly) is next up, ten minutes late because he hates waiting for people… He’s a total “rise taker” and kicks into his mate Slipps from the off with some delicious banter that makes you want to pull up a chair and grab a glass of that whiskey yourself. He reserves his fiercest barbs for the superbly named Prozac (Paul Danan) who is last to arrive and first to get the blame for the job just gone South.

Paul Danan and Daniel O'Reilly

Prozac, so-called for his addiction to every drug going, lives on his nerves and was panicked into using the gun taken only for show, during the raid, firing off “like John Wayne on crack…” aka Grand Theft Arsehole (I am going to borrow that next time I hit the M25!). Prozac claims the coppers started firing first but no one else remembers anything other than his mistake.

Things calm down as the whiskey kicks in and Fisherman lays out some generous lines of white powder and we get more excellently crafted stories and group interplay. Michael Head writes great, natural dialogue and, as with his previous plays, Worth a Flutter and The Greater Game, the shared narratives are the strongest, pulling you in with a smile as you recognise the bond between these mates.

The men discuss how crime has changed and how imprisonment was not only an occupational hazard it also helped you establish new contacts and relationships for more escapades once outside. Thus, is it that drugs suppliers help Uncle Mick develop his pharmaceutical business in South London – although strictly without heroin, another part of The Code. Prozac became pally with a lad called Pretty Face, and when they were outside, “getting properly pissed like Liverpool town centre on dole day…” (in fairness, it doesn’t have to be pay day, it can be any day), he reintroduced him to old school pal Slipps.

And so, bonds are formed and the boys go about their business; doing their best to make sure their families have different choices. Slipps has two daughters and doesn’t want them ending up with his lot; he needs to leave them a legacy.

Cracks start to show between Prozac and the others and they become more aggressive and open – it’s not just the coke talking though and there are deeper truths about family and love to be revealed.

The Time Team...

IThankYouTheatre Rating: **** You won't find a more compelling or entertaining night out with the lads anywhere else in the West End! Great characters and smashing stories.
Time is a very passionate play and the gang of four inhabit the roles with fulsome conviction (well, they’ve been sent down enough times…). Director Joe Withers makes the very most of the Tristan Bates intimacy and the biggest laugh of the night cam after a deft ad lib from Mr O'Reilly after a line from Mr Danan that speaks volumes for the tightness of this cast!

Time is only playing this week and is already sold out on some days so get in quick, it’d be a crime if you missed it! Details on the TBT/Actors Centre website.

I used to work with Ronnie and Reggie’s niece, she used to say her Nan would get her to behave by threatening to get her uncles onto her. So, if you know what’s good for you, get yourself down to Time as soon as!

Kendra and Betty go boating… The Gulf, Tristan Bates Theatre

“I’m going to build a big wall between us right now baby and make you pay for it!”

There are long sections of this play that just ring so true. In the cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni there are frequently couples in the midst of an almost unsayable bewilderment as, say, Alain Delon tries to connect with Monica Vitti or Marcello Mastroianni tries to bridge the deep spaces between himself and Jeanne Moreau through sexual contact, words failing him.

Anyone in a long-term relationship has had moments like this and it doesn’t matter if it’s Marcello and Jeanne or Betty and Kendra: sometimes we are not aligned, sometimes we “hate” the one we love and sometimes we just don’t meet in the middle. So it is in this European premier of Audrey Cefaly's unflinchingly honest and compelling play.

Betty (Anna Acton) has lots of things to say, she has a lot of questions but her taciturn partner Kendra (Louisa Lytton) is not easily moved: “I’m not the answer, baby. I’m not. I’m just me.” Betty has dependency issues and Kendra is tough on the outside and pretty tough on the inside too, lounging back on their fishing boat drinking Bud Light and batting back most of the conversational gambits thrown her way.

Anna Acton and Louise Lytton (photographs Rachael Cummings)

Their boat is moored in Alabama somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, a favourite spot for Kendra as the fish get more traction in the shallows and the hunt is commensurately more fun. Kendra’s the one with the rod but Betty is also fishing… for compliments, for a reaction and for reassurance: she’s having about as much luck as Kendra with only a tiddler to show for her efforts.

The pace is slow but it’s a sunny day and there’s six years of shadow boxing to allow for as our two lovers also show they’re fighters. Betty has to fill the spaces with seemingly inane talk about Delores Pedaway’s fifteen cats and how a woman on welfare can possibly afford to feed so many felines. Delores and her cats are a recurring theme as is Betty’s attempt to get Kendra to think about a different career than her current occupation as a sewage worker. Betty has a “self-help” book she refers to as a career-path workbook… it’s helped her decide to take up social work and she’s turning its life-changing light onto her girl.

It’s an attempt to engage which Kendra feels is a part of Betty’s condescension… they both under-rate the other’s feelings for them and whilst this makes Betty reach out, physically and emotionally, it sets Kendra on defence mode. But, as they pick away at each other’s weaknesses, it’s only a matter of time before the barriers are down and the two engage in more heated discussion of well-worn themes. Sometimes an argument is the only way and I say that as the guilty one in many a dust-up caused by practiced inattentiveness.

Then, as the day wears on, there’s a real crisis as the boat’s motor is tangled in weeds and the prop pin is snapped; the two women work together to fix the problem, Kendra calming the panicky Betty and the two warming up to act as a couple: we see why they are.

Louise Lytton and Anna Acton (photographs Rachael Cummings)

But it’s not the end of it… there are issues still to unfold and we’re as unsure of the relationship as the women themselves. Whatever the future holds for these two, you’re rooting for them. This is in no small part due to excellent performances from the two leads who are both so subsumed in their characters. Their timing is perfect and that’s the hardest part to get for a convincing relationship – Betty and Kendra think they’ve heard it all before but they either have and not listened or they’ve been deaf to the gradual evolution of the gulf between them.  The accents are spot on and the emotional turns are deftly made and it was only during the rapturous applause at the end that we saw the Lytton smile on full beam. Job well done both!!

Matthew Gould directs well, intuitive relationship spats take much hard work and the setting is irresistibly intense: we’re stranded on that little wooden boat with them… You have to hope for the best and that’s the best you can hope for.

The Gulf plays at the Tristan Bates Theatre until Saturday 5th May and I reckon you should buy a ticket to share in an experience as universal as it is personal. Tickets availablefrom the box office and I would expect this one to be a hot one.

Ithankyou Theatre rating: **** Makes you go home and really want to talk.

Clouds over Luton… Bunny, Tristan Bates Theatre

“I don’t like thinking, I don’t like thinking…but I do it all the time.”

Catherine Lamb hits us with everything she’s got for a well over an hour, giving us a whirlwind of powerful, teenage narrative including fighting, a car chase, school disco and sexual power play. She brings Jack Thorne's meticulous prose to life: 70 minutes of dialogue, one woman, three clouds and a battered chair… it is an amazing performance you are consumed by her energy and emotive force and you are left reeling by a cliff-hanger ending I won’t reveal.

Bunny tells the story of Katie, 18-year old school girl, bright enough to get A’s in her GCSEs and in her AS “ass-levels” and the first in her family to get a place in university. Her parents read The Guardian and she is almost at Grade Five on the clarinet. She’s what we used to call working class but her future awaits even though she’s by no means sure of it.

Katie doesn’t quite fit in with the fast set at school, all of the girls who came to her 18^th decided to leave on cue at 10.30 as some kind of statement… she’s too off-beat to really hold down a position in their ranks and had only one real friend and overweight girl she was ashamed of but who liked and understood her.

Katie’s boyfriend – she’s ambivalent on his status – is a 24-yeard old black guy called Abe who even now was a shock to her parents and no doubt many others. He works in a factory and seems distinctly un-invested in Katie’s opinions and personality. The couple meet after her day at school and Abe gets into a fight with an Asian boy who tries to nick his ice cream.

Catherine Lamb, photograph Michael Lindall

Katie doesn’t like fights and whilst she’s undoubtedly thrilled by the frisson of male combat, she’s not giving them high marks for style. The boy gets a choke-hold on Abe and the fight fizzles out as he heads off on his bike.

Two of Abe’s workmates have seen the scuffle, a man called Jake and the commanding figure of Asif, a man they all defer to and who seems to take an interest in Katie from the start. Asif is a compelling character as drawn by Catherine/Katie: he drives a fast car, takes command and plays subtle games with all of those around him.

He decides that they must pursue the boy – who spat at Abe to start the quarrel – and to meet out justice. They set off in his car playing tag with the boy as he cycles down passageways but can’t get far enough away. He gets cornered and manages to give the gang a slip as a young boy distracts them… Asif then puts pressure on the boy to let them know his name and where he lives… it’s uncomfortable even in the re-telling and we’re lost in Catherine Lamb’s story telling feeling the fear and threat.

The pack head off to Luton’s Bury Park and after Asif finds out where the boy lives they sit outside in his car eating a kebab. Asif plays all those around him including Katie who, childlike, responds to his attentions as she would anyone who gave her the compliment of simply being interested. We’re appalled that she is in this situation, “I know what I’m doing…” but she really does not.

The tension mounts as they go inside the boy’s house to sit and wait with his unsuspecting mother… Katie must decide who’s side she is on, Asif’s or her own: it’s a difficult choice to make and, given that she is telling the story, one we presume she has already made?

A clouded future? Catherine Lamb, photograph Michael Lindall

Throughout the play there are cut-aways to the more introspective world before Katie cuts back to her story. It’s a very well-constructed narrative that never loses momentum even in these moments and Lucy Curtis is to be congratulated on her direction. I also loved the minimalist set with three clouds changing colour with Katie's mood.

Catherine Lamb is so cohesive and committed to the performance that you believe her every word. In the end we’re left hanging on to each sentence… hoping for the best and recognising the terrible ease with which young lives can turn.

“I think life can be basically divided into two things: suspense and surprise. I prefer surprise to suspense. But that’s basically because I feel suspense all the time.”

Bunny is a production of Fabricate Theatre Company and runs at the Tristan Bates Theatre until 27^th January – so yourself a favour  and grab a ticket whilst you can!

IThankYouTheatre Rating: ***** Breathless.