Remotegoat.co.uk
By Andrea West, 3rd July 2009
The pocket-sized Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds was a perfect
setting for this revival of a one man show written and performed
originally by Michael Mac Limmoir in 1960 - as enigmatic a character
as Wilde and probably a good subject for his own biographical play.
Directed by Tom Neill, Alastair Whatley, a young actor of undoubted
talent, took this play by the scruff of the neck and wrung all the
drama he could from a work that in essence could have been quite
static. The set was busy enough, maybe a little too cluttered - it
looked like an attic room from the set of Rising Damp - but it did
give a claustrophobic feel to scenes such as Dorian Grey and The
Ballad of Reading Gaol. This piece did tend to assume quite a lot of
knowledge on the part of the audience - I was hoping to learn more
about Wilde himself than I actually did - but there is no doubt that
we were given a comprehensive tour through his work with Mr Whatley
taking on all the roles including Lady Bracknell! There were some
inconsistencies - why not have a knife to actually cut a canvas when
you have a stage full of props, and what was a laptop doing in a
Victorian scene? And why go to so much detail with set and not with
costume - Wilde was flamboyant so why not dress up? But these are
minor points in an otherwise very professional and absorbing
performance of a piece that deserved to be revived.
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