The first rule of showbiz, according to Walt Disney: “Always leave them wanting more.” DBC Pierre’s Booker prize-winning debut, adapted for the stage by Tanya Ronder, holds a similarly cynical view of the world’s workings. It preaches survival of the sycophantic. To get ahead, merely roll over and tell them what they want to hear. Truth doesn’t get a look in. Just put on a show and eat the meek.
In the middle of this materialist society is troubled teen Vernon Gregory Little (Joseph Drake), a purveyor of principles tossed this way and that by the self-serving aims of others. Wrongly arrested for accessory to murder after his best friend Jesus shot and killed 15 of his schoolmates before committing suicide, Vernon gains notoriety as a serialized serial killer, thanks to the careerist efforts of TV reporter Eulalio Ledesma (Lally, played smooth, sweaty and sleazy by Peter de Jersey). The evidence that would clear his name, a stool deposited by the makeshift grave of his murdered father, is too shameful to reveal. So Vernon breaks bail and heads for Mexico, where – after a rush of blood to the, um, head – he confesses. Even the certainty and solitude of Death Row can’t save him from exploitation, having been fashioned into a Reality Television show by Ledesma. Before long Vernon gets voted off the face of the earth.
Entertainment has, in other words, triumphed over absolute values. Pierre’s self-deluding populace are primed for deception and the media delivers what they want. Rufus Norris’s production, somewhat revised since its first outing in 2007, equates all this with the notion of showmanship. Vernon’s trial has more than a hint of Vegas about it. The courtroom is a spangling gold backdrop. Attorneys duel with guitar rifts. Ledesma wows the crowds with an impassioned rendition of the national anthem and Vernon goes down, quietly protesting his innocence. It’s no surprise that Kafka springs to mind. Everyone in Norris’s production heeds the system. All are two-dimensional, more concerned with appearances than with substance.
But it only becomes apparent towards the end that Norris is using the language of showmanship for good reason, rather than simply putting on a show. That means, for a good deal of Vernon God Little, the whole thing feels oddly hollow, like it’s skimming the surface rather than mining the depths. The pace may ping like a ricocheting bullet, but you wonder what purpose it’s really serving. It’s happier to take a lazy gag – regularly whipping out the bird flipped behind a back – than knead a comedy out of characters and situation. Like an energy drink, it’s lively and vivacious but lacking in real nutrition.
At it’s centre, however, is an assured debut from Joseph Drake, whose eyes seem to chase an answer in the madness until they finally come to rest with blank, empty comprehension as he faces death. There’s a touch of the hapless clown to Drake. Or, to put him in Stoppardian terms, his Vernon is pure Moon – that is, a man to whom things happen. His voice is permanently apologetic, reminiscent of Kermit the Frog, as if a bubble trapped in the throat prevents him from speaking up for himself. Embarrassed and quizzical, his body stiffens and clenches against the whirlwind of events. “Fate pays attention to what you need,” he softly rails against the world, “and then paints a dick on your forehead.”
Sometimes, it takes a teenager to tell it like it is.
Photograph: Johan Persson
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