A Man Stays In Bed

at The Old Fire Station until Saturday 4th 2000

In the programme notes for A Man Stays in Bed, the winner of the Oxford New Writing Festival currently showing at the O.F.S., the author refers to the play as "very short and very silly". This is not strictly accurate: it's a bit long. Frankly, the pace is frustrating - but hey, such considerations never did Beckett any harm; still, this isn't Beckett, and it's not quite the existential thought-provoker it would like to be either.

It's not just the pace that causes despair: why the hell doesn't the man get out of the darn bed? Perhaps this is an in-depth study of the philosophical phenomenon of "akrasia", whereby short-term desires overcome our ability to pursue long-term goals... If it is, it's very difficult to tell. It's more likely to be an encouraging tale for all us student types, the moral of which is that victory can be obtained by staying exactly where you are every morning.

Admittedly, A Man Stays In Bed is not all bad: it plays cheekily with the pre-war costume drama genre, and its steady descent into total surrealism is made amusing by the butler's intermittent transformation into a watery Satan (it's all done with lights, you know). The end of the world is nigh. There's also some nice acting, all the performers coming out well, and Dina Leytes and Ben Seifert in particular showing considerable style. However, apart from some effective wellington boot action, the play is (as you might expect) rather static, and the gushing (and interestingly ambiguous) accents of the main character are annoyingly reminiscent of an over-enthusiastic playschool presenter.

The lighting and sound are pretty nice, and the costumes are pleasing to the eye in an unimaginative way. Overall, this is by no means a classic, but if you appreciate the generally very sound aims of the New Writing Festival you might want to pop by anyway to show your support.

Susanna Jordan