CANNED GOODS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★

“The final scenes are affecting – the clever use of lighting being one of the stars of the show”

A farmer, a petty thief and a Jewish philosopher walk up to some bars. Sounds like the beginning of a bad taste joke. And it is. This is the sickest of all jokes as the three mismatched Third Reich prisoners – the eponymous Canned Goods – are fattened, flattered and sold a lie about their date with destiny.

So why are they receiving unexpected kindnesses from their SS jailers? The answer is to be found in the programme notes which somewhat drains the evening of tension.

This is writer Erik Kahn’s retelling of the Gleiwitz incident on August 31, 1939, which effectively began World War Two.

The Gleiwitz Incident was a false flag operation carried out by Nazi Germany to create a pretext for invading Poland. In the incident, SS operatives, dressed in Polish military uniforms, attacked a German radio station in the town of Gleiwitz.

To bolster the illusion, they used the bodies of prisoners, dressed them in Polish uniforms, and left them at the site as “evidence” for the Press to photograph.

Much of what is known about Gleiwitz comes from the affidavit of SS-Sturmbannführer Alfred Naujocks at the Nuremberg trials. In this uneven production, Naujocks – all oily smiles, cognac, and swirling cigarette smoke – re-creates the operation as grand theatre, alluding to our complicity as docile and gullible voyeurs.

Among those whose bodies were left behind were that of Honiok (Tom Wells) who had Polish sympathies. Others were anonymous prisoners of Dachau and here they are revived and given names and lives to lose. They are wry Jewish teacher Birnbaum (Charlie Archer) and petty criminal and anti-Semite Kruger (Rowan Polonski), naively patriotic to the end. Archer and Polonski provide the most nuanced performances of an evening consisting mostly of archetypes.

The conceit is rich in potential – stick three contrasting figures in a cell, give them an occasional stir by the provocative Naujacks (a lupine Dan Parr) and then set them raging against the dying of the light. But the three never have time to evolve much beyond their prescriptive origin stories, the script lacking rhythm and momentum in director Charlotte Cohn’s ambitious but over fussy production.

The play is presented as a series of academic explorations of war – from polemics on anti-Semitism, to the role of God on the battlefield – issued as pleas from clueless pawns in a global conflict.

The prisoners, whose performances are rigorous and well-constructed, hold out the tantalising hope that they might break free from their oratorical straitjackets and become rounded characters, but this promise is too frequently snatched away in the rush to hammer home some on-the-nose point about Hitler being a bad sort.

The final scenes are affecting – the clever use of lighting (by Ryan Joseph Stafford) being one of the stars of the show. And the image of a press photographer posing bodies brings us smack up to date with evocations of Abu Ghraib and the shocking iconography of degradation.

Ultimately, though, the play demands less of us than the subject matter should insist upon.

CANNED GOODS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 20th January 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Mark Senior

Recently reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

THE MASSIVE TRAGEDY OF MADAME BOVARY | ★★★ | December 2024

THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH | ★★★★★ | November 2024

[TITLE OF SHOW] | ★★★ | November 2024

THE UNGODLY | ★★★ | October 2024

FOREVERLAND | ★★★★ | October 2024

JULIUS CAESAR | ★★★ | September 2024

DORIAN: THE MUSICAL | ★★½ | July 2024

THE BLEEDING TREE | ★★★★ | June 2024

FUN AT THE BEACH ROMP-BOMP-A-LOMP!! | ★★★ | May 2024

MAY 35th | ★★★½ | May 2024

SAPPHO | ★★ | May 2024

CAPTAIN AMAZING | ★★★★★ | May 2024

WHY I STUCK A FLARE UP MY ARSE FOR ENGLAND | ★★★★★ | April 2024

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE VALLEY OF FEAR | ★★½ | March 2024

POLICE COPS: THE MUSICAL | ★★★★ | March 2024

Canned Goods

★★★★

“Although lacking the traditional sleigh bells and Santa, it does have sufficient nostalgia, silliness and giggles to fill a panto-shaped hole”

In case you’re wondering, “Hold on to your butts” is a line from Samuel L Jackson as he is about to reboot the computer systems of Jurassic Park in the 1993 ground-breaking monster flick.

It’s a terrible title for a fun evening but, I suppose, theatre company Recent Cutbacks can’t stick “Jurassic Park” anywhere near the poster for legal reasons.

But the copyright holders need not fear for their intellectual property. It’s in safe hands. This madcap shot-for-shot re-creation of the mega-dinosaur smash is made by people who adore the movie. And love movie-making.

It’s 10 years since this slick whistlestop tribute opened in New York City, later wowing crowds at the Edinburgh Fringe and now setting up at the Arcola under the direction of Kristin McCarthy Parker. Although lacking the traditional sleigh bells and Santa, it does have sufficient nostalgia, silliness and giggles to fill a panto-shaped hole.

This production takes you back. Not just to Steven Spielberg’s genius film, but to your garage, or garden, or park. Where on a rainy Sunday, with nothing else to do and the wifi down, you and your mates stumble upon a cardboard box from Tesco which once held pineapples. The box becomes everything – castle, racing car, majestic pirate ship scything the seven seas…

Here, two performers and a sound artist perform a similar feat of ingenuity and imagination in this lo-fi, charming and very funny evocation of the original.

What’s that you say? A herd of serene brachiosaurus sweeping across the plains of Isla Nublar? Here you go. A mosquito trapped in a piece of amber? A barley sugar will suffice, no?

Performers Jack Baldwin and Laurence Pears tread the fine line between slavish adoration of the original and good-natured fanboy parody. On the sidelines, but equally a star, is foley artist Charlie Ives recreating T-Rex roars, rainstorms, computer beeps, creaking branches and everything else that helps make the fun funnier.

The humour is often of the Airplane! variety – aforementioned (pre-Pulp Fiction) Samuel L Jackson’s growing smoking habit an example – and much of the joy is in the anticipation, figuring out how two men and some props retrieved from a trash can are going to make a car fall through a tree, or create the tension of a raptor hunt. And there’s much humour to be mined in the script too – such as Jeff Goldblum’s wry “chaotician” delivering his memorable brow-knitted cod-philosophies studded with Pinteresque ‘umms’ and pauses. Or that perky and patronising strand of DNA explaining how cloning works.

It helps to know something about the film because the sheer challenge of miniaturisation does lend itself to some confusion, but the iconic scenes are all there as anchors – the ripples on the cup of water, T-Rex going to town on a toilet-bound Donald Gennaro, probing a big pile of dino-poop, sweaty Wayne Knight, girlie Laura Dern…

This is the perfect night for anyone who’s ever seen a stack of cone party hats and thought – three of them, artfully placed – there’s my triceratops!

CANNED GOODS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★

“The final scenes are affecting – the clever use of lighting being one of the stars of the show”

CANNED GOODS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 20th January 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Mark Senior

Recently reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

Canned Goods

Canned Goods

Canned Goods

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

Arcola Theatre

★★★★

“Although lacking the traditional sleigh bells and Santa, it does have sufficient nostalgia, silliness and giggles to fill a panto-shaped hole”

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

Arcola Theatre

Reviewed on 13th December 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Mark Senior

Previously reviewed at this venue:

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS