Tron Theatre, Glasgow
4 stars
To suggest Flann O'Brien was in touch with his ridiculous side when he
rattled out his wonderfully audacious flight of internal fancy
disguised as a novel at the fag-end of the 1930s is to seriously
understate things somewhat. Or at least that's the suspicion in the
Sligo-based Blue Raincoat company's rip-roaring riot of a stage
adaptation as fashioned into shape by writer Jocelyn Clarke and
director Niall Henry.
For the uninitiated, O'Brien begins his yarn with the premise that one
ending isn't nearly enough for any novel of worth, so, through the
initial eyes of a feckless and possibly auto-biographical student,
proceeds to open out his world to a multitude of possibilities,
mythologies and other things stranger than fiction.
What emerges out of such a pre post-modern stew in Blue Raincoat's
multi-tasking hands is a fast-moving pop-up book collage of junkyard
vaudeville, lip-synching operatics and pulp western combined with live
art trappings and Irish Dada. Thus apparelled, it proceeds to jump
through linguistic and stylistic hoops before tumbling into itself with
the familiar fluidity of dreamscapes explored while dozing at one's
desk. It's a world where a first drink is accompanied by what sounds
like a choir of angels, and when the pantomime cow steps through the
red velvet drapes and into the spotlight on the bare floorboards of
Jamie Vartan's decrepit speak-easy set, it's hard to avoid a fit of the
giggles.
As performed by a cast of – just five, was it? - Blue Raincoat have
produced a magnificently arch flesh and blood personification, not just
of the low-attention span peccadilloes of O'Brien's creative process,
but of an entire psyche bursting into bawdily rambunctious life.
The Herald, May 23rd 2011
ends
4 stars
To suggest Flann O'Brien was in touch with his ridiculous side when he
rattled out his wonderfully audacious flight of internal fancy
disguised as a novel at the fag-end of the 1930s is to seriously
understate things somewhat. Or at least that's the suspicion in the
Sligo-based Blue Raincoat company's rip-roaring riot of a stage
adaptation as fashioned into shape by writer Jocelyn Clarke and
director Niall Henry.
For the uninitiated, O'Brien begins his yarn with the premise that one
ending isn't nearly enough for any novel of worth, so, through the
initial eyes of a feckless and possibly auto-biographical student,
proceeds to open out his world to a multitude of possibilities,
mythologies and other things stranger than fiction.
What emerges out of such a pre post-modern stew in Blue Raincoat's
multi-tasking hands is a fast-moving pop-up book collage of junkyard
vaudeville, lip-synching operatics and pulp western combined with live
art trappings and Irish Dada. Thus apparelled, it proceeds to jump
through linguistic and stylistic hoops before tumbling into itself with
the familiar fluidity of dreamscapes explored while dozing at one's
desk. It's a world where a first drink is accompanied by what sounds
like a choir of angels, and when the pantomime cow steps through the
red velvet drapes and into the spotlight on the bare floorboards of
Jamie Vartan's decrepit speak-easy set, it's hard to avoid a fit of the
giggles.
As performed by a cast of – just five, was it? - Blue Raincoat have
produced a magnificently arch flesh and blood personification, not just
of the low-attention span peccadilloes of O'Brien's creative process,
but of an entire psyche bursting into bawdily rambunctious life.
The Herald, May 23rd 2011
ends
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