Review: Captain Oates' Left Sock, Finborough Theatre

Written for Culture Wars

In 1912, on the return journey of the first British polar expedition, Captain Lawrence Oates sacrificed himself for his group, walking to his death to avert theirs. That his left leg was an inch shorter than his right – an injury sustained in the Boer War – adds imbalance to altruistic dignity. So it is that he becomes the perfect metaphor for comedy writer John Antrobius’ examination of early trials of group therapy amongst the insane.

Antrobius’ play examines a group of institutionalised voluntary inmates under the inactive observation of Dr. Parks (Tom Marshall). In amongst the ragbag collection of ticks and crocks are the youthfully antagonistic David (Richard Atwill), the coy masochist Juliet (Sally Tatum) and Carter (David Hinton), a suicidal forty-something bouncing between prim etiquette and blind inappropriateness.

As a line-up of the loopy, Green for Go’s production is an intriguing study of humanity, but lacks the frantic, zig-zagging urgency exhibited by the genre’s classics. Over the course of several sessions, Antrobius places more emphasis on revelation than revolution with the result that very little seems to change. Janie Booth’s Molly still feels wonderful, Pascale Burgess’ Dorothy remains silent and David exposes himself, before leading the group – Parks and his nurses included – to an isolated life of contented revels in a rural barn.

Director Russell Bolam’s response is to place us within the circle of chairs, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the characters. While this creates an appropriately awkward beginning, the segregation of audience and characters means it soon settles into a more conventional experience, albeit one in which focus is split between the reactions of individuals rather than the overall scene.

Thanks to strong, varied performances the result remains quite captivating. Marshall instils in Dr Parks an aloof curiosity that lends the part an endearing culpability; Atwill’s bulbously bullish David brings a sense of danger to proceedings and Hinton’s Carter is the very picture of anxious repression.

Best of all, however, is Lloyd Woolf as Fergy, a wannabe percussionist with a bodily stammer and a fear of loud noises. While Woolf can mine a silence for all its comic value, it is in Fergy’s paralysing indecision that Antrobius’ play finds its tragic edge. Woolf presents a man fighting against his nature, but oblivious to his constant drift away from mean time, constantly sprinting to keep up but falling further into the past. His naive happiness begs the question as to who Dr Parks’ institution is really helping – the patients, society or Dr Parks himself.