John Porter
Private Fears in Public Places
Stephen Joseph, Scarborough
This is minor Ayckbourn, which is like saying: “This is only an 18-carat diamond.” It has six characters in search of a life, and its short scenes overlap and interlock. Nicola (Melanie Gutteridge) is a cut-glass bitch getting impatient with her lover, Dan (Stephen Beckett), an army officer cashiered for incompetence. Their estate agent (Paul Kemp) watches porn videos lent by his colleague Charlotte (Billie-Claire Wright), which appals his spinster sister, Imogen (Sarah Moyle). Meanwhile, Imogen meets Dan, through personals, in his favourite hotel bar; the barman (Adrian McLoughlin) employs Charlotte as a part-time carer for his dying father, and she makes, er, quite an impact. This may sound complex, but it isn’t. Ayckbourn’s construction has a masterly clarity; his writing combines ruthless observation with mature tolerance. Nobody else writing today can create a sense of a complicated little world in 90 minutes, or make banal lives seem so unforgivably interesting. Listen: it’s a master’s voice. Four stars
John Peter
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Circus Oz
Festival Hall
The anarchic Australian troupe opens its latest madcap show in a blaze — a flaming gyroscope wheel and bicycle, burning drums and pillars of fire. We feel it’s the hottest show in town. Other delights include a befuddled clown entering his dressing room to find it upside down on the roof of the stage, walking on the ceiling and pouring a whisky (“That’s gone straight to my head”); a butch strongwoman in a lit-up bikini; and trapeze artists got up as screeching parakeets. An over-age boy scout becomes a human cannonball. A trick cyclist flies over a recumbent accompanying violinist. Best of all, a young man called Captain Frodo twists his dislocated, flailing arms and legs through the stringless frames of two tennis rackets, giving a new slant to “tennis elbow” — both cringe-making and hilarious. The acts pour out like a torrent to the surge of a jazz trio. Raucous, earthy, zany and packed with spine-tingling feats, this is a real summer treat. Four stars
David Dougill