by Ben LaffertyOxford theatre doesn’t do much for the lads. Softly spoken aesthetes of delicate temperament get their weekly doses of inner turmoil and post-modern angst, while the red-blooded FHM readers of the community are left clutching their cider bottles in the cold. Well, no longer, as Jez Butterfield’s award winning first play careens onto the Oxford stage.
I don’t mean to suggest that a Y-chromosome is strictly necessary to enjoy this show, at least not so much as a few stiff drinks and the attention span of an epileptic moth. This is a play about speed, in every sense, and the pace rarely lets up for long. The constant blurring of frenetic action, amphetamine-fuelled babbling and simmering violence make for a diverting, occasionally amusing, visual spectacle. The fatigue that comes of watching this show is born not of boredom, but over-stimulation.
This lack of focus is fine when the cast’s significant flaws are cloaked by the noise and excitement that characterises much of the play. If these enthusiastic young men weren’t called on to act once every ten or fifteen minutes, the experience might even become enjoyable. Niceties out of the way first. Sam Kennedy’s portrayal of a nightclub owner’s progeny is hardly a master-class, but provides the stand-out performance. He might lack emotional depth, but his swagger has just the right mixture of self-assurance, insecurity and menace. Nat Gordon’s performance is similarly blunt. We’re looking at a cockney wide-boy a la Harry Enfield, which you’re free to take as a recommendation if you must. In spite of that, his natural affability and inane grin make his character the only likeable one of the gibbering bunch.
When things are progressing a mile-a-minute, Gerard Miles’ understated impassivity acts as a sort of dramatic gravity well on stage, an appreciable relief from the incessant hullabaloo. But when engaged in protracted dialogue, things grind to a halt. His apathy drains the play’s accumulated momentum, and in moments Mojo transforms from a mindless diversion to being actively bad. If Miles’ performance is merely lacklustre, then Jack Sanderson-Thwaite’s is like nails on a blackboard. While the cast’s better members work hard to evoke 1950s London through speech and studied movement, Sanderson-Thwaite is wildly, jarringly anachronistic. There is an indefinable aspect to his anaemic self-pity that returns us firmly to 2007.
This might be the closest we will come to seeing Reservoir Dogs on the Oxford stage this year. Those who revelled in the kinetic exuberance of Tarantino’s early work might find something to like here, but this has none of his wit. There is too much reliance on poorly executed physical comedy, too great a propensity to lean on crudity for this to be pleasurable in anything more than sporadic bursts. Maybe this one is for ‘the boys’ after all. They’re welcome to it.
Dir. Adam Grant
& Kate Antrobus
BT 7.30 Tues-Sat
6th Week
