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MickAstonDavies
Reviews
Eh, Joe? (1966)
Haunting and haunted
This play, only twenty minutes long, is outstanding. A man alone in a room is tormented by a woman who is never seen. Is she a ghost, or his own tormented memory? As in 'Krapp's Last Tape' we see a man beset by a voice from his own past (his own voice in 'Tape' his lover's voice in 'Eh, Joe'.)
Joe is Jack MacGowran, a superb actor with a hangdog expression that perfectly suits Beckett's tragi-comic vision of the world. The young woman's part is spoken by Sian Phillips, and a fine, dry, haunting job she does of it. Like Pinter, Beckett pares language down to its essentials. If you can find it, see it.
Bread or Blood (1981)
Unjustly Forgotten
This series, loosely adapted from the memoirs of one of the men involved, is about a clash between the workers and the aristocracy in England in the eighteenth century.
It is reminiscent of the play "The Fool" by Edward Bond, which also takes place at this time, and deals with riots in East Anglia. The shepherds are losing their lands to the aristocracy and riot: if there is no bread, they warn, then there will be blood.
The show was criticised at the time for inventing certain incidents: for instance the main character beating his son with the belt because the boy cried for a dog - it's quite a brutal story - but it is a powerful piece of work and should be revived. Malcolm Storry was excellent in the lead role.
Olly's Prison (1993)
There Is No Out
Shockingly under-rated three-part TV drama never released on DVD despite being by a great writer and with a great cast.
The play opens with a forty minute scene where a man tries to persuade his silent daughter to drink a cup of tea. We see how his character has struggled to maintain his self-respect despite not having a job, and living in a high-rise flat, and we see the anger in his character and how it has unforeseen repercussions for him and his family.
Mike (Bernard Hill) says that there is no difference between in prison and outside of it, and he is persecuted by a mad policeman. The series shows how society is obsessed by punishment, and that this creates the violence that it is supposed to be restraining.
Harrowing, but with streaks of jet-black humour, this should be repeated and released on DVD. A masterpiece.
Playhouse: The Combination (1982)
Funny and Sad
It's been a long time since I've seen this play, but it stays in my mind: two boys from Shropshire want to go to London to see the Festival of Britain. They try to get there in a go-kart. (Note for American readers: that would be a distance of about 150 miles.) The main character is one of the boys who has a somewhat disturbed father. At one point he has a nightmare of his father screaming and ranting while covered in apple sauce.
The comic Duggie Brown is very good as the boy's awkward but kind-hearted uncle. The script was written by the actor Tim Preece, who also shows up in it as a motorcyclist with an artificial leg. (Preece is perhaps best known as Reggie Perrin's hopeless son-in-law.) A DVD release would be much appreciated: the BBC is sitting on some gems.
ITV Saturday Night Theatre: Long Day's Journey Into Night (1973)
Major Revival Needs DVD Release
Eugene O'Neill was one of America's greatest writers and this play comes at the end of his long career. LDJIN is the most autobiographical of his plays, and it is significant that he didn't write from his own experience until the end of his life, when he could understand it.
But a play isn't necessarily good just because it is written from the author's experience, it takes imagination too, and O'Neill has it, and it is imagination that helps O'Neill forgive his stingy and tyrannical old father. Olivier is great as the father, at once authoritative and poignant, regretting the waste of his talent, and Chapman, Pickup and Quilley are all fine as his enslaved family.
I first saw this production when I was 16 and I have never forgotten it. It's slow and wordy, but if you stick with it it has a humanity and compassion that set it far above most plays of the twentieth century.
Armchair Thriller: The Girl Who Walked Quickly: Part 1 (1978)
Atmospheric But Confusing
The Girl who Walked Quickly is a tale about a phobic who we see being brainwashed by total immersion and being made to work for a murderous organisation. I shan't give away what happens, but the violence is quite graphic for a show that went out before 9pm.
The trouble with the show is that it sets up a lot of intriguing ideas and never really pays off on them. We see the hero's parents and the scene seems to suggest something horrible happening in his past: but it never really goes anywhere. We don't know what the terrorists are trying to achieve and also the ending seems a bit rushed. The problem might have been the focus being split between the hero's story, and that of his girlfriend and tutor who are trying to find him.
Not perfect, but worth a look if you like 70s psychological thrillers.
Theatre Night: The Birthday Party (1987)
Brilliant Use of Language
Most critics didn't understand this play when it was first put on, and it's actually not fair to blame them: nothing like it had appeared on stage before. Pinter's understanding of how people talk and don't listen to each other is unique: no amount of bad imitators can detract from his achievement. The cast are all fine, but Pinter and Blakely stand out, though Kenneth Cranham with his vest under his pyjamas is a memorable sight as well. High time this was out on video.
Goldberg and McCann, working for the mysterious Monty, can be seen as representatives of evil repressive regimes everywhere, but they're not just symbolic figures: they're credible people: the brutal but occasionally maudlin McCann and the seemingly friendly Goldberg, full of talk of loyalty and family, yet, in his treatment of Lulu, utterly callous. They act the way powerful people everywhere act, hence the play's resonance.
Screen Two: Old Flames (1990)
Well-honed comedy drama
Stephen Fry stars as a smug, self-satisfied lawyer in this black comedy-drama written by Simon Gray. Fry is reliable as a lovably pompous dimwit who meets an old boy from his school, played by Simon Callow, a man who is forever grimacing in an attempt to be endearing. Then mysterious things start to happen: another old boy from Fry's school goes mad, and then Fry seems to discover that many of his old school-friends have cracked up or died in mysterious circumstances. He fears revenge but he is not certain for what. The tale leads to an unexpected but satisfying conclusion. The cast are excellent, and the script, by Simon Gray (who wrote Cell Mates, the play Fry famously abandoned in panic)is funny and wry. It's a cautionary tale about the dangers of emotional indifference, a subject Gray wrote about to such effect in "Otherwise Engaged." It's a minor work from him, but worth seeing if it ever emerges in the schedules.
Play for Today: Chance of a Lifetime (1980)
Lowkey drama unjustly forgotten.
I haven't seen this for many years but I remember it as a typically naturalistic account of a father who has problems communicating with his two sons who are in their late teens. David Daker, one of the reliable character actors who never seems to get his proper due, is totally believable as the father, and the sons are far more credible than the caricature youths middle-aged script-writers write today. It's downbeat, but should be repeated. Too many programmes that could be viewed again the BBC just sit on.
The political situation is commented on by the elder boy joining the army and being posted to Northern Ireland, but the play is not about Ireland so much, but about the impact his joining up has on his tight-lipped and emotionally awkward family.