★★★★

“Wright’s writing and Patarkatsishvili’s staging pitch the message just right”

Orwell, Kafka and Beckett walk into a bar. Sounds like the premise for a joke, and indeed there is a perverse layer of humour that runs through Craig Wright’s “The Unseen”, but on the whole it is made up of pretty serious stuff. There are definite shades of the three writers’ influence, who could well have been swapping notes as they downed their drinks. The bar man is a young, interrupting Tarantino who fancies himself as a bit of a dramaturg while pulling pints. Frivolity and comparison aside, though, Wright’s heavy, harrowing, thought-provoking style comes with its own ambition, agenda and raw uniqueness.

We are plunged straight into the action. Even during the pre-show we are involuntary voyeurs, gazing upon Valdez (Waj Ali) and Wallace (Richard Harrington) in their solitary prison cells. Wallace is asleep while Valdez nervously looks around him, twitching at the sight of invisible ghosts. We see the whites of his eyes as they roll upwards in fear, dejection and confusion. Simon Kenny’s brutally realistic set encases both protagonists in their own worlds. Their own cells, and thoughts. Without making eye contact they communicate, passing the time playing memory games to keep madness at bay. They are grieving for their lost freedom, exacerbated by the fact that neither one (nor us) knows why they have been incarcerated.

Fear and paranoia continually wrestle with hope and optimism. The former invariably gaining the upper hand. A distinctly wordy play, both actors maintain an extraordinary command of the dialogue. Harrington’s Wallace is the more restrained and resigned elder captive. A slave to routine after eleven years, he is just about managing to keep control of his own mind. Waj Ali, as the younger Valdez, is a relative newcomer. Just three years into his stretch he is on rockier ground, conjuring up a hallucinatory woman in the next cell who has promised to help him escape. But both know their only escape from this world is death. Both actors exercise an extraordinary attention to detail that accentuates their personality traits; long buried under institutionalisation.

Into this world bursts Smash, the prison guard whose impossibly complex and damaged character is breathlessly brought to life by Ross Tomlinson. As much a prisoner as the two captives, he lashes out with murderous intent in a vain attempt to kill the oppressive empathy he feels. Both torturer and tortured, we can’t help but wonder how Tomlinson unwinds after each performance. It is a savage hour and a half, and undoubtedly polemic. Director Iya Patarkatsishvili describes it as “more than just a story; it is a call to action”. And for that reason, it deserves to be seen far beyond the smaller space of Riverside Studios. The macabre gallery we walk through on our way into the auditorium bears witness to the reality that is more disturbing than the fiction. The play’s anonymous setting is betrayed by the caged headshots of Russians who have taken a stand against Putin’s regime and found themselves imprisoned as a result.

Against this backdrop, Wright’s writing and Patarkatsishvili’s staging pitch the message just right. Short enough to hit us with a whiplash force, the grotesque humour pricks up our ears to the message that sinks in as insidiously as Orwell’s infamous ‘newspeak’. Not for the faint hearted, its own heart is ferociously strong. Mike Walker’s palpitating sound design sends literal alarm bells. This is happening every day. The finely nuanced and authentic performances are integral to our understanding of ‘The Unseen’ characters. They need to be seen, just as their factual counterparts do. “The Unseen”, in short, is a must see.

DR. STRANGELOVE at the Noël Coward Theatre

★★★½

“part broad farce, part skewering satire, a little bit of ’Allo ’Allo, some Airplane, some Partridge”

You have to laugh, don’t you, faced with this confluence of existential crises. War in Europe and the Americans tempted by the charms of a bloviated strongman. Meanwhile the Reds, if not exactly under in our beds, then loitering on our phones, messing with our minds.

Perfect time then for that whip-smart agitator Armando Iannucci, arch chronicler of political chaos, to revive and adapt director Stanley Kubrick’s classic ode to Cold War lunacy, Dr Strangelove.

A great decision and elevated to genius with Steve Coogan who is in harness for not one but four roles – the headliner’s quick change act a marvel in itself.

A reminder: it’s the early 1960s. We’re in the Cold War, everyone’s on edge, there are Commies everywhere, paranoia is rife and cigar chomping General Jack Ripper (a very Trumpian John Hopkins) has gone rogue, sending his pilots to drop a big wing of H-bombs on the Ruskies.

The next two hours of this soaring, mile-a-minute, yet strangely stodgy comedy sees bumbling War Room generals trying to mitigate and resolve one world-ending disaster after another, not helped by a disabling patriotism that won’t let them back down.

There’s a grab-bag of comedy influences on show – part broad farce, part skewering satire, a little bit of ’Allo ’Allo, some Airplane, some Partridge (inevitably) as well as dollops of that Pythonesque love of institutional silliness.

But mostly we’re living in Coogan’s world. He is the lynchpin of director Sean Foley’s ambitious production that attempts – by means of audacious staging, filmed backdrops, crashes, bangs and shoot-outs – to emulate Kubrick’s 1964 silver screen satire.

All eyes are on Coogan as he embodies, in turn, marble mouthed Brit Lionel Mandrake (channelling King Charles); frazzled plot device President Merkin Muffley; bombastic, bombtastic pilot Major TJ Kong; and the eponymous Dr Strangelove, the sinister Nazi (‘as American as apple strudel’) with the Andy Warhol wig and the alien robot arm that has a tendency to heil Hitler. Coogan is at his peak here, whizzing about in a wheelchair in a blizzard of tics, finding layers of comedy in his camp German inflections.

When he is on, he is truly on, when he is off – changing wigs and suits – we hanker for his return.

Coogan makes the most of his audacious bid to match, and perhaps surpass, Peter Sellers – the film’s original star – as the country’s most admirable comic actor. Coogan gives it everything, seemingly understanding the weight of the comparison, even taking on a fourth role to top Sellers by one.

The production is not entirely successful. The convolutions of plot and language occasionally fall for their own complexity meaning the comedy sags. Too many jokes are aimless and dated. And the febrile pacing – one note, full pelt farce, major scene changes, and non-stop calamity – is sometimes too much and not enough at the same time, the cinematic ambition leaving the theatricals stuttering.

But the ensemble cast is uniformly strong. Booming Giles Terera as General Turgidson takes on Coogan blow-for-blow in the War Room set pieces. Mark Hadfield sprinkles baffled fun on proceedings as Paceman, and Tony Jayawardena gives Russian Ambassador Bakov some comedic heft.

The sets (by Hildegard Bechtler) are jaw dropping, the energy phenomenal and the laugh rate about as high as a B-52 over Moscow.

Tag Archives: Manuel Harlan

THE UNSEEN

★★★★

Riverside Studios

THE UNSEEN at the Riverside Studios

★★★★

“Wright’s writing and Patarkatsishvili’s staging pitch the message just right”

THE UNSEEN at the Riverside Studios

Reviewed on 25th November 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

FRENCH TOAST | ★★★★ | October 2024

KIM’S CONVENIENCE | ★★★ | September 2024

THE WEYARD SISTERS | ★★ | August 2024

MADWOMEN OF THE WEST | ★★ | August 2024

MOFFIE | ★★★ | June 2024

KING LEAR | ★★★★ | May 2024

THIS IS MEMORIAL DEVICE | ★★★★ | April 2024

ARTIFICIALLY YOURS | ★★★ | April 2024

ALAN TURING – A MUSICAL BIOGRAPHY | ★★ | January 2024

ULSTER AMERICAN | ★★★★★ | December 2023

THE UNSEEN

THE UNSEEN

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

DR. STRANGELOVE

★★★½

Noël Coward Theatre

DR. STRANGELOVE at the Noël Coward Theatre

★★★½

“part broad farce, part skewering satire, a little bit of ’Allo ’Allo, some Airplane, some Partridge”