“Crouch captures perfectly every facet of Reed’s tormented personality “
Oliver Reed: Wild Thing returns to the capital after a much acclaimed UK tour and successful runs at the Edinburgh Festival. In terms of longevity, it has been around now for almost five years, an achievement many West End shows can only dream of.
Based around Reed’s autobiography, ‘Reed All About Me’, this one man show chronicles the hellraiser’s life from childhood misfit, across his acting years and right through to his alcohol sped demise in Malta in 1999.
As you might expect, much of the play involves alcohol and the effect it had on Reed, his colleagues and family. The show itself is set in the very bar where he collapsed on that fateful afternoon in May 1999.
Reed is brought to life by Rob Crouch (who co-wrote the play with Mike Davis). It felt immediately like the star was back with us, Crouch capturing perfectly every facet of Reed’s tormented personality. The voice was as if it was from beyond the grave, even the look and build could have been Reed.
The drunken chat show appearances are neatly portrayed as are the anecdotes about the infamous days long parties he hosted with stars such as Keith Moon in attendance. We hear of how he got his breaks and his working relationships with directors Michael Winner, Carol Reed (his uncle) and Ken Russell.
Whilst it is fair to say Reed brought about his own ultimate end through his love of indulgence and excess, there are moments when you feel utterly sorry for the man; unable to beat his addiction and exploited by some of the media as some kind of circus show freak.
If you have no idea who Oliver Reed was, then look him up. Alas the most watched and read about parts of his life are his boozed up misdemeanours on live television. Look beyond that and you will find an incredible talent – a star of films such as the Hammer Horror series, Oliver!, Women in Love (in which he became the first frontal male nude to appear on the British cinema screen), to his final appearance in Gladiator. The play at first seems though to focus on the drunken dramas that beset Reed, but look and listen and his talents are there, all around like fading ghosts of his past.
The show is only about an hour long, but nothing feels rushed. Oliver Reed: Wild Thing is intoxicating in every sense of the word, just like the great man himself.
Oliver Reed: Wild Thing
at the King’s Head Theatre until 28th January
Tuesday to Saturday at 9.15pm & Saturday matinee at 3.30pm
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This Is Not Culturally Significant
February 15th – February 19th
VAULT Festival
Following a 5 star sell out run at the Edinburgh Fringe, intense and darkly comic one-man show This Is Not Culturally Significant is transferring to the VAULT Festival 2017.
This Is Not Culturally Significant unveils the bizarre, compulsive and eccentric nature of humanity. Over ten characters are portrayed; from a pathologically lying classics professor to a despondent American porn star on the brink of her retirement. This is a thunderous, high energy piece of theatre combining dark clown and deeply grotesque bouffon which holds up a mirror to the often unnoticed absurdities of human life – and contains full frontal male nudity throughout.
Out of Spite Theatre was founded by Adam Scott-Rowley in 2014 and strives to create confrontational, unsettling and high-intensity theatre. This Is Not Culturally Significant is the company’s first show, which aims to unmask the superficiality of our society’s expectations, desires and collective ego.
