Written for Time Out
Its flaws remain unhealed, but second time around - post-riots, post-Starkey - Lucy Kirkwood's debut play should be respected for its prescience. Tinderbox's caustic portrait of English nationalism flourishing out of social decay seems less dystopian than when premiered at the Bush in 2008.
The setting is Everard's butcher's shop, the last vestige of a once-great empire, outside of which riots and rising seas are swallowing Britain.Inside the shop, Saul Everard (Christopher Knott) presides over his wife and latest assistant Perchik (Nick Howard-Brown) with a rusty meat cleaver.
National heroes hang on the wall - Churchill, Beckham, Davidson - and depleted roadkill stocks are topped up using Mrs Lovett's method of meat sourcing.
Though performed with a little too much relish, Bill Buckhurst's semi-immersive production is vivid and vile. He places us on the shopfloor and, brilliantly, walks us in through Everard's back garden, complete with murderous cement-mixer.
However, while Kirkwood's situation merits lip-smacking comparison with Philip Ridley and Jez Butterworth, the play is exposition-heavy and narrative-light. Her characters lack clearly defined motivations and as a result seem degenerate, and the state-of-the-nation imagery is ambiguous to the point of disorder. Tinderbox needs a rewrite more than a revival.
0 comments:
Post a Comment