November 18, 2009
The Local focuses on a bunch of misfit characters conversing with each other in a dingy pub called The Dark Horse. It is nearly Christmas. Arthur, an elderly local, drops a bombshell. His daughter, whom he hasn't seen in years, is to pay him a visit in the pub. Arthur then drops dead. The locals decide to bury the corpse before his daughter arrives. This is just the start of things...
Opening with a non-local getting his head smashed in with a bottle, followed by a Tarantinoesque conversation about Christmas number ones, The Local is a play that sets out to confound the senses and mess with the mind. It does exactly that. And guess what? I loved every minute of it!
Writer Ed Baranski, who plays the aforementioned stranger, has come up with a masterpiece. The sell-out crowd lapped up every minute of it; choking with laughter one minute, biting their nails in terror the next. Particularly good performances come from Tom Garton as psychotic pub landlord Terry; Ollo Clark as hilariously clueless pub regular Freddy, and Nicolas Pierce, who turns in a literally show-stopping performance as an alcoholic, unemployed department store Santa Claus, recently fired from Tesco. The jet-black comedy draws its cues from classic BBC sitcoms such as The League Of Gentlemen, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python and One Foot In The Grave, also oozing the creepiness of horror writers such as Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King and HP Lovecraft. The script is wonderfully thought out and intricately plotted; every scene serves as a kind of dramatic pitfall for the next. I've given up trying to draw comparisons: this is a play that literally has to be SEEN to be believed!
By the end, seemingly every member of the audience was whooping with glee. I felt the same way. This is a production that deserves a nationwide tour, so that as many people as possible can thrill to its sick majesty and macabre delights. Brilliant stuff; a resounding ten out of ten from this reviewer. Theatre critics beware - you won't know what's just hit you after viewing this!
Opening with a non-local getting his head smashed in with a bottle, followed by a Tarantinoesque conversation about Christmas number ones, The Local is a play that sets out to confound the senses and mess with the mind. It does exactly that. And guess what? I loved every minute of it!
Writer Ed Baranski, who plays the aforementioned stranger, has come up with a masterpiece. The sell-out crowd lapped up every minute of it; choking with laughter one minute, biting their nails in terror the next. Particularly good performances come from Tom Garton as psychotic pub landlord Terry; Ollo Clark as hilariously clueless pub regular Freddy, and Nicolas Pierce, who turns in a literally show-stopping performance as an alcoholic, unemployed department store Santa Claus, recently fired from Tesco. The jet-black comedy draws its cues from classic BBC sitcoms such as The League Of Gentlemen, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python and One Foot In The Grave, also oozing the creepiness of horror writers such as Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King and HP Lovecraft. The script is wonderfully thought out and intricately plotted; every scene serves as a kind of dramatic pitfall for the next. I've given up trying to draw comparisons: this is a play that literally has to be SEEN to be believed!
By the end, seemingly every member of the audience was whooping with glee. I felt the same way. This is a production that deserves a nationwide tour, so that as many people as possible can thrill to its sick majesty and macabre delights. Brilliant stuff; a resounding ten out of ten from this reviewer. Theatre critics beware - you won't know what's just hit you after viewing this!