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Theatre listings > Free Fall. - Tour & World Premiere. Playwright - Chistopher Deans. Director - Lorenzo Mele. Designer - Colin Begg. Lighting Designer - David Shea. Sound Designer - Graham Sutherland. Assistant Director - Catrin Evans. Company - 7:84 Theatre Company Scotland Company Website. Cast - here . 2006 Tour Dates and Times - here . Seen to review at Paisley Arts Centre on 18 February 2006. Run Time - 2 hours including one Interval . Reviewer - Thelma Good. Results of believing the British Dream. The past can come to haunt you or to remind you that you have made the wrong choices all along. So it is in this flawed play about the results of believing politicians and the British Dream. It sometimes amuses, we laugh 'cause we too in the UK have been snookered by the same hopes and dashed by the same pitfalls and small print. In today's Scotland John, and Cathy's ex-council house is soon to be possessed by the bank, she, Hope Ross, is trying to hold it together like some spouses do, as is John, David Anderson, in a so restrained performance that risks being looking disaffected. The unspoken things the couple skirt round are long lasting and the style of the acting is slice of life. The potential for the performances to move audiences fell short on the first night. Christopher Dean has written in an overly naturalistic, formulaic way,and lacks different levels for the actors to find power and added character. There are the offspring you don't see, they're not essential to the plot and could have been left out - there's a suspicious that originally the play had a larger cast. The two you do meet are the up till now successful Mary, Anita Vettesse, and the globe trotting charity worker Paul, Gary McInnes. Leaping over the low set wall is Paul Corrigan's Danny, a youth whose life might just be saveable, unlike of the other characters you find yourself genuinely sorry for him. Perhaps because he's only just getting to the point where he can make his own mistakes. Despite all the other actors' efforts Deans has failed to show us enough of these individuals' warmth for us to be concerned about any of the family. The production is hampered by a overly elaborate set which attempts to suggest the inside and outside of pensioners' . The design results in a frantic and clumsy attempt to move the action outside towards the end of the second half. Why can't designers realise audiences don't need pedant design and why do they littering the some times small acting space with too many levels walls and unstandable surfaces? John and Cathy acted on Thatcher's right-to-buy* and Mary, like many climbing upwards believed that their jobs would always give them larger paycheques while Paul is a restless do-going soul like so many finding on way to put roots down. The realities of Scotland now are aired, but nowhere is there a sense that the course can be altered. Perhaps that's how it is but this kind of theatre benefits from more raw anger and a feeling that somewhere there is light or a way to change. It's always struck me that there's something very odd about state funded political theatre - a vent for discontent or a medium for change? There's certainly something to be gained by dramatising the state we are in, looking at its shortfalls. 7:84 gives its audience confirmation that others have noticed how things are. Free-fall's title suggest we're now not only living without a state safety-net but failing to provide our own, unfortunately the despair about that overwhelms anything else. Sometimes the problem with political theatre is we don't want to hear the message and sometimes the message gets muffled by the production. This company's last stage production also directed by Lorenzo Mele was Borderland. Set in Ireland in Spring 2005 and staged last autumn it punched home its message. Written by Andrew Doyle it signalled that 7:84 after 30 years continues to deliver. It's not easy to hit that strongly, sadly Christopher Deans' Free-fall lands too softly for its material. © Thelma Good 18 February 2006 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com Right-to-buy - Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher enabled council house owners to buy their rented council houses at reduced rates from the council. Shortly after it was introduced some people found themselves unable to meet their payments and had to give up their mortgage and their house. Since then people have found sometimes that they have managed to sell those houses and move up the property ladder, others have found that circumstances become difficult and they have to surrender the house to their mortgage lenders. Cast - John - Dave Anderson, Cathy - Hope Ross, Danny - Paul Corrigan, Mary - Anita Vettesse and Paul - Gary McInnes. 2006 Tour Details of 7:84 Theatre Company Scotland's production of Free-fall . Tour begins 16 - 18 Feb at 7.30pm Paisley Arts Centre 0141 887 1010. 22 Feb at 7.30pm Glasgow Castlemilk Community Centre 0141 334 6686. 24 Feb at 7.45pm Cumbernauld Theatre 01236 732.887. 25 Feb at 8.00pm Melrose The Wynd Theatre 01896 820 028. 28 Feb at 8.00pm Stirling Macrobert 01786 466 666. 1 & 2 March at 7.30pm Musselburgh Brunton Theatre 0131 665 2240. 3 March at 7:30pm Dunfermline Carnegie Hall 01383 314 000. 4 March at 8.00pm St Andrews The Byre Theatre 01334 475 000. 7 March at 7.30pm Toryglen Geoff Shaw Centre 0141 647 0969. 8 March at 7.30pm Livingston Howden Park Centre 01506 433 634. 9 March at 7.30pm Falkirk Town Hall 01324 506 850. 10 March at 8.00pm East Kilbride Arts Centre 01355 261 000. 22 March at 7.30pm Findhorn Universal Hall 01309 690110 or 01667 455 528. 24 March at 7.30pm Portree Aros Centre 01478 613 750. 25 March at 7.30pm Ballachuilish Village Hall 01855 811 979. 28 & 29 March at 7.30pm Glasgow Citizens Theatre 0141 429 0022. 30 March - 1April at 7.45pm Dundee Rep 01382 223 530. 4 April at 8.00pm Birnam Institute 01350 727 674. 5 - 8 April at 7.30pm also Sat Mat at 2:30pm Edinburgh Traverse Theatre 0131 228 1404. Tour ends. 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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