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Theatre listings > Cyprus. Playwright & Director - Peter Arnott. Designer - Robin Peoples. Music and Sound Designer - Martin Low. Company - Mull Theatre Company Company Website. Cast - here . Venue - Trafalgar Studios, Whitehall, London SW1A 2DY BO - 0870 060 6632. Dates - 16 Nov - 17 Dec Mon-Sat eves 8pm, Thu & Sat mats 3pm. Reviewer - Ritchie Smith. Eloquent, if surprisingly old-fashioned. Trafalgar Studios are a new central London venue, promoting themselves and their plays with energy. Peter Arnott's Cyprus is a patently sincere attempt to put the attack on Iraq into a British context of Oman, "Lawrence of Arabia", the SAS in Afghanistan, and the listening posts of Cyprus. However, this aspect of the play is over-sold. We know we're in "now" (with computers and mentions of counselling) but we never really come to grips with the West's current bloody adventure in Iraq. The le Carre-type background is however unusual in theatre, and well-researched. The lively dialogue is written by a thorough professional, but the set-up - with a disruptive, damaged outsider coming to "Colonel" Traquair's home on Mull, re-involving himself with Traquair's daughter and also threatening his life - is, I fear, over-familiar. The characters? All are well-acted, with Alasdair McCrone convincingly shifty as Griffen, though the daughter's hectoring barrister's manner at the start made me impatient with both her and the word "infer". But Sandy Neilson as Traquair delivers his dinner-party quips and his scowling asides with great panache. There is a descent into melodrama at the end, and too much of the play seems to be happening elsewhere: even the machinations of lying London, endlessly referred to, are out of this play's focus. Though the author refrains from crude finger-pointing at George Bush, if we want to understand the modern world, "The West Wing" is a better bet. But as an evening of eloquent, if surprisingly old-fashioned, theatrical entertainment, Cyprus hits the spot. ©Ritchie Smith 24 November 2005 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com Cast -Traquair - Sandy Neilson, Alison - Beth Marshall and Griffen - Alasdair McCrone. 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. Theatre listings >
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