A Small Mind At The Theatre

It is perhaps quite a bit of a review spoiler if I open on the comment that I went to see Vinegar Tom by Caryl Churchill a second time. It must mean that it was good then and this review will only end well, unlike for some of the plays characters? In all honesty, it was more superb than good and I probably would have watched it a third time given the chance. However, it didn't all start well as I think for the first few minutes or so I still had in my mind that I might not like it. The blame for this lies I think with my previous horrific encounter with the work of Churchill and the excruciating Here We Go , officially the worst play I have seen. However, time told very quickly that this play was not in that league. It opens with a meeting between Alice (Helena Fenton) and "Man" (Benjamin Hampton in the first of several roles) and is gorgeously performed by the two, with Helena in particular with the most perfectly gorgeous dialect. It is a stark powerful opening to ...

It must take some doing to make people leave before the end of a forty minute play, however Caryl Churchill's Here We Go managed to achieve this, and it wasn't just one, several left. I wasn't of course one of them as I have made it my decision to never leave under pain of not being able to review. However I could understand why as Churchill's play descends from promise and well written material into no writing and painful viewing. The play itself is three small parts forming the funeral wake, the afterlife and the end of life period of an unnamed "Old Man" played with actual style by Patrick Godfrey. Not that he gets much opportunity to show his performance skills, as he doesn't appear in the first ten minutes and has no lines for the last twenty. It is as I say all very odd. The first part is the best and actually entertaining with an impressive cast of seven gathering at the old mans wake and exchanging clever and witty dialogue in a wonderfully swi...