Subject: Dirty Tricks, Spitalfields 25Oct97

Composer/Conductor      Paul Barker
Librettist/Narrator     Stephen Chance
Devised/Director        Christopher Newell

Sarah Leonard, Alan Fairs, Nicholas Garrett, John Grayson,
Stephen Picton, Richard Pocock, Keel Watson

Bass guitar             Martin Elliott

Modern Music Theatre Troupe

This was brilliant, and very funny, but I'm not sure what I can say about
it that's not actionable. The advertisements say it's "not about BA's
campaign against Virgin", so let's say it's a surreal collection of random
pieces of satire about business ethics in the late 1980s, with some jokes
(for no particular reason) about the patronizing manner of flight crew.

After an opening based on Shakespeare's Henry VI (the King and the Maiden),
in rather bouncy iambics, the show consists of a spoken narration combining
pantomine doggerel with in-flight superciliousness, linking cabaret-style
numbers. The music is more-or-less minimalist.

There are no characters as such, but the soprano, whose stratospheric
musical line recalls the shower duet from Lakme for some reason, represents
something like the spirit of Thatcherism, part Utopian free-trade fantasy,
part patronizing trolley-dolly. Two heavy basses (Alan Fairs and Keel
Watson, both hairless and excellent) represent aspects of "the King", the
paranoid big boss. The rest of the cast (some actors, some singers, but all
singing) took on the roles of slimy consultants, boardroom plotters, the
corporate scapegoat and foul-mouthed "bin men" going through people's
rubbish bins looking for evidence of conspiracies. Plus the only slightly
grubby behind the knees pirates who threatent the King's empire. One
particularly funny scene, remniscent of Rory Bremner, re-enacted the chief
pirate's attempt to talk nicely to the King at a party.

The dirty tricks are fully staged in the rather cavernous space of
Spitalfields (made even bigger by the removal of several rows of seats).
The only set is a blue-sky back curtain, and a transparent shower-curtain
scrim. The performers have a chair each, and occasionally climb on parts of
the building. I'm not sure why the production used so much space in this
way, except because it was there. Numbers with only one or two performers
were going to look a bit bare in this space, so I suppose it's worth trying
to make them interesting. On the other hand, the manic dance routines were
very entertaining.

There's a tour in the spring of 1998, well worth seeing. Though something
even more absurd will have happened by then. The Tatton campaign, anyone?

Regards,

Helen

H.E. Elsom
he@helsom.demon.co.uk
http://www.helsom.demon.co.uk/