Tron Theatre, Glasgow
Three stars
Beneath a naked bulb in a top-floor high-rise in South London, a
reunion is taking place. Cannon has been on an extended tour of duty
for the last ten years ever since the untimely death of his wife. His
now teenage children Gary and Lou have been in care ever since. Like a
prodigal returning home from war, Cannon is going to make everything
good again.
Except both his children have been seriously damaged, both by his
absence and the survival-of-the-fittest brutalisation of the system
they've been forced to survive in. While Toby Wharton's Gary likes to
play gangsta with his braniac mate Michael,beyond some small-time
dealing, the lack of a male influence has seen him bullied and lacking
focus. For Anna Koval's initially absent Lou it's been even worse. Both
are desperate for love, but all Cannon knows is the violence of the
boxing ring and the battlefield, and any bonds the three might have
once had are just half-remembered memories now.
Co-written by sixty-something writer Tash Fairbanks and
twenty-something actor Wharton, Fog is a street-smart study of everyday
dysfunction that demonstrates how children's emotional and physical
displacement from their parents at a crucial age can leave its mark.
This may be taken to extremes in Che Walker's raw and unsentimental
production for AGF Productions, first seen at London's Finborough
Theatre in 2012, but there's an honesty to it that belies some of the
play's structural flaws that leave too many loose ends hanging. By the
end, however, when Mark Leadbetter's Cannon is attempting to abdicate
responsibility a second time, it looks like Gary's crash course in
growing up might just have paid off.
The Herald, September 13th 2013
ends
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