Bewilderness
- The Right Size - touring
Writers - Sean Foley, Hamish McColl & Jozef Houben
Director - Jozef Houben
Designer - Alice Power
Venue - Traverse Theatre
(0131 228 1404)
Dates - 25th-28th April 2001
Tickets - £10 (£5)
Reviewer - Daniel Winterstein
The Right Size say their work is easier to watch than describe. Daniel
Winterstein does his best.
Terry and Morris
(Sean Foley and Hamish McColl) "friends for 20 years,
albeit with a 20 year gap" meet for a reunion game of golf. Unfortunately
this has to be put on hold when the pair fall down the back of a sofa
and find themselves trapped in a strange underworld inhabited by an
old man and a sinister banjo player. What follows is an hour and a half
of no-holds-barred silliness. The Right Size combine a very surreal
attitude with visual jokes, post modern self-references, playing with
the audience, occasional music numbers and a little slapstick. The result
is a fresh and funny piece of clowning. There is a plot, but it's complicated,
incoherent and largely irrelevant to the action.
Foley and McColl keep the audience laughing. There is a lot of material
here, and the jokes come thick and fast. Their clowning is nicely offset
by deadpan support from Freddie Jones and Chris Larner.
The production values are excellent throughout. Costumes and props are
wonderful, and used to good comic effect. The set is full of surprises
and the play delights in a stream of simple but fun special effects.
There are faults. Some of the gags are predictable or weak, although
there are more than enough good ones. The duo keep jumping from being
in character (2 men lost down the back of a sofa) to recognising that
they are actors in a show. This makes for some nice jokes, especially
when they play with the audience. However it can have the side effect
of making suspension of disbelief difficult, hindering involvement with
the plot or characters. Without such involvement, the randomness and
wackiness can get a bit a tiresome.
In general, the inventiveness of the play shines through making Bewilderness
light good-natured fun that will appeal to a wide range of people.
© Daniel Winterstein 25 April 2001
