Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
3 stars
Novelist Martin Amis was recently asked in a television interview to comment on London as an example of a multi-cultural city. He corrected his questioner by pointing out that it was actually a multi-racial city. While this might come on as subtle semantic point scoring, the difference between the two is actually vast.
One is reminded of this watching David Edgar’s new play for Out Of Joint, which looks at what it means to be British through the experiences of 21st century immigrants taking the citizenship test that legitimises their naturalisation into little Britain. Inbetween a dense collage of reportage, facts and figures, a series of mini narratives weave in and out of view. Central to this is the white, middle-class teacher of citizenship to a classroom made up of pupils from Somalia, Serbia, the Congo, India and Egypt. It’s here the voguish buzz-words of ‘diversity’ are introduced in a set-up that can’t help but look like a more politically inquiring version of politically incorrect 1970s sit-com, Mind Your Language.
Matthew Dunster’s production becomes an initially dizzying polemic of information overload, in which eight actors play out a multitude of quick-fire roles to the extent that it’s hard to grab hold of anything resembling empathy. Beyond its questions of cultural imperialism, it’s telling that Edgar, himself a western intellectual, can’t help but fall back on the uprisings of 1968 Paris to illustrate what might be a similar flashpoint for today’s frustrated would-be freedom fighters. While you see his point, it over-eggs things somewhat in a melting pot of big ideas that never quite make themselves clear.
The Herald, February 7th 2008
ends
3 stars
Novelist Martin Amis was recently asked in a television interview to comment on London as an example of a multi-cultural city. He corrected his questioner by pointing out that it was actually a multi-racial city. While this might come on as subtle semantic point scoring, the difference between the two is actually vast.
One is reminded of this watching David Edgar’s new play for Out Of Joint, which looks at what it means to be British through the experiences of 21st century immigrants taking the citizenship test that legitimises their naturalisation into little Britain. Inbetween a dense collage of reportage, facts and figures, a series of mini narratives weave in and out of view. Central to this is the white, middle-class teacher of citizenship to a classroom made up of pupils from Somalia, Serbia, the Congo, India and Egypt. It’s here the voguish buzz-words of ‘diversity’ are introduced in a set-up that can’t help but look like a more politically inquiring version of politically incorrect 1970s sit-com, Mind Your Language.
Matthew Dunster’s production becomes an initially dizzying polemic of information overload, in which eight actors play out a multitude of quick-fire roles to the extent that it’s hard to grab hold of anything resembling empathy. Beyond its questions of cultural imperialism, it’s telling that Edgar, himself a western intellectual, can’t help but fall back on the uprisings of 1968 Paris to illustrate what might be a similar flashpoint for today’s frustrated would-be freedom fighters. While you see his point, it over-eggs things somewhat in a melting pot of big ideas that never quite make themselves clear.
The Herald, February 7th 2008
ends
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