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The People Next Door.
- Tour.
Premiered at the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe (review of that production
here) and now touring in a recast production.
Playwright - Henry Adams.
Director - Ian Grieve.
Designer - Miriam Buether.
Lighting Designer - Mark Pritchard.
Sound Designer - Matt McKenzie.
Fight Director - Terry King.
Company - Traverse Theatre Company Web
site.
Cast - here .
2003 Tour Dates and Times - here .
Seen to review at Glasgow Citizen's Theatre.
Run Time - 2hours 30 mins including 15 mins interval.
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
9 months later - changes needed.
This play went down a bomb with 2003 Fringe audiences in the aftermath
of 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq, so why despite the cast's effort and direction
which largely holds true to the original, does it fail to get the laughs
and audience?
In The People Next Door clever with words but not up on world affairs
Nigel, Ronny Jhutti, is of interest to maverick cop Phil, Mark
McDonnell because of his seldom met terrorist brother. His neighbours,
teenager Marco, Daniel Redmond, and OAP, the only Scottish-accented
character, Mrs Mac, Mary McCusker, come to look after him just
as he does them. All three are people who seem to have no power, but in
Henry Adam's play, they become strong together surprising us and them.
Nigel's on sickness benefit, he's none too stable, and Marco speak rap
readily responded to by the young and connected. It's a speech pattern
which leaves some older audience members struggling to understand what
is said. Sadly for them it is the frequently used swear words they do
recognise making it hard to like the characters they need to connect with
if the play is to work.
Although there's a new cast and director for The People Next Door, the
set from the Fringe has remained creating difficulties in more conventional
houses so the action is trapped behind the proscenium arch. Additionally
there is not enough space in the set for the play's action in the larger
theatres, particularly in the children's playground ones these are situated
on the audiences' left hand side, which were obscured for some sitting
in the Citizens at least.
Nine months, Madrid and the increasing mess of Iraq, Israel and Palestine
has affected our reaction to the play too, the fear is closer and there's
less to laugh about as we watch freedoms erode. In response this touring
production needed to lose the attempts at mimicking reality which the
Fringe set and props suggest. It should have gone for the acute and nihilistic
funny core of Adam's play by playing it as a out and out farce so we laugh
knowing otherwise we would cry.
© Thelma Good April 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Touring Cast - Nigel - Ronny Jhutti, Mrs Mac
- , Marco - Daniel Redmond and Phil (The policeman) - Mark McDonnell.
2003 Tour Details of Traverse Theatre's production
of The People Next Door.
Tour begins
27 Apr - Sat 1 May Glasgow Citizens’ Theatre www.citz.co.uk
5 - 8 May at 8pm Edinburgh King's Theatre www.eft.co.uk
11 - Sat 15 May Coventry Belgrade www.belgrade.co.uk
And then goes to Germany
to
20 May Dusseldorf Shauspielhaus www.duesseldorf-schauspielhaus.de
And
to
22 & 23 May Bochum Schauspielhaus www.schauspielhausbochum.de
Tour ends
2003
Fringe Review with original cast.
The People Next Door.
Drams None needed.
Venue Traverse Theatre. (Venue No 15).
Address Cambridge St off Lothian Rd.
Reviewer Thelma Good.
The Traverse opens the Fringe with this cracking well cast and directed
play. Henry Adams has created characters who intrigue, make us laugh and
shame us. Three of them live in the same block of housing association
flats, its exterior, stairwell and interior scenes well realised by Miriam
Buether's set. It's highly comic yet political approach is like the best
of Dario Fo, driving the story with a lighter pedal on the slapstick and
a stronger one on the irony.
Nigel, Fraser Ayers, is the guy down stairs, he's on invalidity
benefit 'cause he's a bit mental. He has the strange hand movements of
the too easily disturbed. Nigel's now holding it together by avoiding
pressure. Ayers' central performance as the wee mixed race guy
is a tour de force making sure he quickly become our hero. Nigel may have
problems with his mind but he has really engaging patter. Even making
us laugh when he's in deep doo, doo under the nasty policeman's shoe -
he's a very special creation.
His best friend is a nice, open faced, black school boy, Marco, Jimmy
Akingbola, who lives on the first floor with his mum who's on the
game. Along the landing from him is pensioner Mrs Mac, Eileen McCallum
watching her namesake on the TV series High Road. She chats away all
the time to her husband's photograph. Each of them look out for Nigel.
When Maverick cop Phil, Joe Duttine appears to get Nigel to help
him track down his distant Muslim half-brother the two neighbours up stairs
get involved in Nigel's increasingly difficult life. And he in theirs.
The play's full of lines which make you laugh then pull you up making
you think. Containing a policeman using off the wall methods and packets
of brown and white stuff to get Nigel to do his bidding, Adam's play packs
a strong punch. It knocks deftly on the head the prejudice - if you have
no status you have no strength. Police in a time of terrorism maybe tempted
to act like Phil, but they better watch out. People like Nigel, Marcus
and Mrs Mac, if they keep the head, Adam suggests retaliate against the
state machine's and any too eager policeman's twisted methods and kick
hard against the pricks.
Adam's last prize winning play Among Unbroken Hearts was flawed IMHO by
lazy writing but Adam's new play contains energy, anger and sharp, sharp
writing. The lively script handed over in a plastic bag just before the
Fringe Programme deadline contains the zest of its fresh and urgent creation.
And Nigel with his "dodge and dive" magnificent personality could become
one of drama's enduring characters. I expect this play will have more
productions but catch it in this first one, punch sharply directed by
Roxanne Silbert.
© Thelma Good 29 July 2003 - Published on www.EdinburghGuide.com
Theatre Editor, Thelma Good's e-mail is
thelma@edinburghguide.com
Although every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented in these pages, no responsibility can be accepted
for any errors or omissions.
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