Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
Five stars
The Club of the Unloved is already in full swing as the audience enter for this touring revival of Emma Rice’s twenty-first century reboot of the mediaeval love story that refuses to lie down. As Les Baxter’s lush lounge core sounds are swapped for Wagner on the vintage record player at the side of the stage, the mini mob of geeky ‘love spotters’ and the live junkyard band above them usher in a romp of all romps that turns to tragedy within a broken heartbeat.
In short, when John Leader’s French speaking knight has a dangerous liaison with Nandi Bhebe’s Irish princess Yseult after fetching her for Edward Rowe’s good King Mark following an altercation with her country's comedy gangster invaders, a heady brew of emotions burst forth. The ill fated pair cavort gymnastically throughout choreographer Etta Murfitt’s routines on a circular stage in Bill Mitchell’s original set design. Refreshed by Vicki Mortimer for this latest iteration of a show first seen in 2003, it looks somewhere between a circus ring and a pirate ship. As balloons burst and assorted sparks fly, survivors look set to be few.
Our guide through all this is Stephanie Hockley’s Whitehands, who looks somewhere between Tinkerbell, Jackie Kennedy and Mrs Maisel. As the mood darkens in the show's second half, her key role beyond narrator becomes clear..
Produced by the Emma Rice Company with York Theatre Royal and Nottingham Playhouse, Rice’s production of her own adaptation with writers Anna Maria Murphy and Carl Grose wears its heart on its sleeve on a grand scale. Athletic and anarchic in delivery, and driven by composer Stu Barker’s live score, Rice’s production captures all the yearning of a doomed amour married to a punky irreverence drawn from European street theatre. With twelve people on stage to make a song and dance of things, the result is a thrilling physical and musical invocation of how love hurts.
ends
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