The Hudsucker Proxy Liverpool Playhouse 5th June 2015

Is Norville Barnes really gonna jelly-up the sidewalk?

You could spot audience members who knew Joel & Ethan Coen's film because they were the ones chortling to themselves a split second ahead of the delivery of the gags. Other than a neat theatrical framing using the prologue, Simon Dormandy has remained reverently faithful to much of the screen text and narrative in his adaptation for the stage, making a very theatrical piece of cinema into a very cinematic piece of theatre.

However, taking it as theatre in its own right, this new adaptation co-produced by Liverpool Everyman Playhouse and Nuffield Southampton (where it premiered last month) stands as legitimately on the stage as though it has been born there, and those who have not seen the original neednt feel they have to revise beforehand.

In a nutshell, and with as few spoilers as possible, when company president Waring Hudsucker takes a dive from the 44th floor of the Hudsucker building (45th if you count the mezzanine) the board replace him with the seemingly witless mailroom assistant Norville Barnes in order to depress the stock. When he comes up with a stroke of genius that foils their plans, they have to resort to desperate measures to achieve their goal.

Not only has Simon Dormandy written the adaptation and co-directed with Toby Sedgewick, but he has also had to step into the shoes of Clive Wood, who was to have played Vice President Sidney Mussberger before having to step down following an incident in rehearsals. If the play gets the continued life it deserves beyond its current run we may yet get to find out what Clive Wood made of the role but, as it is, its hard to imagine a better fit for the part than Dormandy. For the same reason Tim Lewis, whose lead character is the lift-operator Buzz, adeptly takes a role originally rehearsed by Liverpool's own Nathan McMullen.

There are some excellent characterisations from a cast who all play multiple parts, and its hard to pick highlights, but watch out for Rob Castell's astonishingly malleable face, Tamsin Griffin's platinum blonde, Nick Cavaliere's swagger, David Webber's all knowing clock man Moses, and Sinead Matthews' wily but affecting Amy Archer.

Holding it all together is a magnetic central performance by Joseph Timms as Norville Barnes, whose fortunes rise and fall faster than the elevator. He is brilliantly cast in the part and fills the role with naive optimism and tremendous energy.

The production is made in association with Complicite, whose trademark physicality is visible in so many scenes, and the inventiveness of movement and the deft use of props and performance space keeps the piece rattling along with as much precision and clockwork as the great timepiece at the top of the Hudsucker building.

The look of the play is every bit as stylish as the acting is slick with Dick Bird's complex set, in which physical scenery blends with mapped video projection from Tim Bird. This allows for some brilliant cinematic touches, such as the rolling of the presses as a news item hits the front page. It also means that scene changes are as seamless as if they were on the screen. The whole look and feel captures the era perfectly.

Apply the final gloss of lighting and sound design from Paul Keogan and Gareth Fry and what you get is almost 2 hours of fast-paced theatre that delivers a morality tale with its tongue firmly in its cheek and is a joy to watch.

The Hudsucker Proxy continues at Liverpool Playhouse until 27th June.

Joseph Timms - Photo © Clare Park

Pests – Liverpool Playhouse Studio – 28/05/2014

Co-produced with Manchester Royal Exchange and London’s Royal Court, Pests is presented by Clean Break Theatre, whose work focuses on women writers and actors. Clean Break provide theatre opportunities to women both in and out of custody.

Vivienne Franzmann developed the play as a result of time spent working with women in prisons. She was deeply affected by the lives of the people she met and was moved to tell their story. Pests examines the damaged lives that emerge from childhood neglect and abuse through the eyes of two young women who are fighting to survive.

From the bag she carries we can see that a heavily pregnant Rolly has just been released from prison and she descends on her sister for a place to stay. Pink’s flat, in Joanna Scotcher’s design, resembles landfill nestling in a maze of plumbing. Grubby mattresses with their stuffing spilling out across the floor are strewn with the detritus of a disordered life – food cartons, bottles and cans and bits of leftover pizza. The walls have been pared away to a skeleton of plumbing and wiring.

As they describe it Rolly and Pink don’t live here, they nest, and there is something in the way they clamber about the disarray that transforms them into nesting rodents – suggestive of the pests of the title.

Rolly was fostered as a child while Pink remained in care, but despite this separation the siblings have remained interdependent. They have also developed their own language that is both aggressively defiant and strangely childlike. As well as the horrors of the past that haunt them are flashes of something that seem like happy childhood memories of the Wizard of Oz.

Whilst inside, Rolly has swapped her old drug addiction for a dependency on prescriptions meds and she has aspirations of finding “jobbage” and turning her life around. Pink, meanwhile, is still stuck in a cycle of abusive relationships and her own addiction. In her lucid moments she joins her sister in looking to a better future but withdrawal, alternating with chemically-induced oblivion, drag her back to darker places and threaten to take Rolly with her.

Fabiana Piccioli’s lighting, combined with video projections by Kim Beveridge and sound design from Emma Laxton, periodically immerse the set in a psychedelic haze that reflect Pink’s altered states of mind.

Ellie Kendrick and Sinéad Matthews as Rollie and Pink deliver a mesmerising double act. In the post-show discussion they spoke about the language of the play which they had to get to grips with in the early stages of rehearsal. There is certainly a distinct rhythm and poetry in the dialect that Franzmann has invented for her characters and once you get used to it (it takes a few minutes) it defines both their individuality and the bond between them. This is a very physical piece and apparently they have sensibly avoided scheduling more than one performance each day.

This sort of material running at 100 minutes with no interval sounds like a heavy evening, but with writing and performances like these it is compelling viewing and perfectly suited to the intimacy of the Studio space.

Last year, in Melody Loses her Mojo from 20 Stories High, we were introduced to some teenagers leaving care, one separated from her younger sister who found foster parents. We were left there with hopes that they would go on to find a happier life, while Pests shows us the fallout when young people don’t get the right kind of support and encouragement.
Clean Break use their work with those at risk of stumbling into a life of offending and dependency to help them build more positive futures. Anyone in need of convincing that society needs theatre should look at this and see just how powerful it can be.

Pests is at Liverpool Playhouse Studio till Saturday 31st May.

It will continue to The Drum, Plymouth 3rd to 7th June and Birmingham Rep 11th to 14th June.

For further details, see http://www.cleanbreak.org.uk