Greene thriller takes the cake!
Edge of the seat ripping yarn from the master of suspense.
IT started with a fruit cake and ended with our hero, Arthur Rowe, catapulted into a fully fledged spy thriller.
Graham Greene's The Ministry of Fear, at the Royal & Derngate last week, was a strange beast which drew you in and kept your attention even though, when analysed in the cold light of day, not a lot happened.
It paid homage to that other great British thriller, The 39 Steps, pitching an ordinary "everyman" type character into the most unlikely of scenarios.
Nothing was quite what it seemed in MoF, including the protagonist. Rowe looked haunted and paranoid, his eyes darting around, filled with fear. Superficially he was a widower who ran a boarding house – except we soon learned he had a horrifying past.
The drama was set in the Second World War and the imaginative set, little more than an adult climbing frame, was used for a variety of locations – from a garden fete to a hotel, nursing home and differing houses.
Rowe accidentally found himself the recipient of a fruit cake that contained an added ingredient that could alter the outcome of the war. Before he knew it he had German spies after him complete with a femme fatale.
Theatre Alibi and director Nikki Sved made good use of their cast with a number of the minor characters playing several parts, often only for a fleeting glimpse as they barrelled across the stage.
A couple of musicians played on stage adding to the steamy atmosphere. If ever there was such a thing as "theatre noir" then this was it. Highly stylised but uttering engrossing and reminiscent of countless wartime dramas.
Would Rowe come out unscathed ? Would he get the girl ? Would the dastardly Jerries get away with their fiendish plot?
Chris Bianchi kept control as Rowe, never giving much away except through his very expressive eyes. You couldn't help sympathise with the man. All he ever wanted was to do what was right and sometimes that was entirely wrong.
Michael Wagg, Jordan Whyte, Craig Edwards, Derek Frood and Benjamin Warren played 13 characters between them, shifted the stage about, created special effects and generally recreated wartime London on a pretty small Royal stage.
An imaginative and absorbing mystery.
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Weather for Leighton Buzzard
Tuesday 07 February 2012
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