REVIEW: Dirty Old Town/ Out the Woodwork, Hope Street Theatre
THIS home-grown double bill had much to recommend it.
One-woman show Dirty Old Town and ensemble Scouse farce Out the Woodwork came as a package deal for two nights of performances that brought a combination of dark laughs, quirky twists and shock reveals.
Mikyla Jane Durkan, previously known for her work on the other side of Hope Street with Casa-based company Burjesta, played Marigold Lately - a character? An alter-ego? Possibly, a bit of both - part social commentator, part victim of society’s ills.
A discombobulating mix of storytelling, stand up and performance, Dirty Old Town was at its best when Durkan played a variety of characters to paint a vivid tale of life on the fringes of society. It was interesting, too, to see a female take on a style reminiscent of Robert Farquhar’s multi-character male-dominated ‘lost weekend’ brand of scenes of Mersey life; a glimpse of something darker in Marigold’s past was effective and moving.
Arguably some clarity was needed at the off, to introduce the audience expressly to Marigold and set out the stall a bit more effectively. The performance was not a linear storyline rather than a collection of sketches that merged styles, techniques and intent - deliberately jarring, to unsettle as well as amuse. There were laugh out loud moments among some poignant observations on current events - not always a comfortable watch, not always supposed to be, but an intriguing one. I’d be interested to see more from Marigold.
Out the Woodwork, a new one-act play from writer Lee Clotworthy, boasted a fantastic ensemble cast that took some keenly observed working class family dynamics and turned everything up to 11 without sacrificing its heart or sense of fun.
Samantha Richardson was Pat, a put-upon divorcee looking forward to nothing but Saturday night TV and cheap fizz with best friend Lins (Geraldine Moloney Judge), when the evening’s lottery draw changes everything.
And boy, does Clotworthy have a few tricks up his sleeve. The twists, and there’s a few, are incredible fun. If Joe Orton ever lived in Brookside Close you might get something akin to Out the Woodwork.
This well-structured farce packed plenty into a single act, with an excellent cast completed by Roxanne Male, Mike Newstead, Eve Bowles and Francis J Brack. It has bags of potential, and surely a life beyond this run.
As well as the fantastical, over-the-top nature of the plot, the play was also a well-observed, realistic look at the stresses and strains of middle aged women in particular - while some characters were somewhat cartoonish, Pat is a fleshed-out protagonist, manipulated at every turn and struggling to find her voice. Clotworthy takes the familiar and finds the comedy in Scouse family life without sliding into cliche, and Out the Woodwork shows he is certainly a writer to watch.
