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Stoppard double bill beats lunch in Subway
STOPPARD SHORTS
King's Head Theatre
IT’S hard to know what to expect from daytime theatre, but the seats at the King’s Head don’t stay empty for long as punters pile in for Tom Stoppard’s short plays, The Dissolution of Dominic Boot and If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank, both directed by T P Kael.
The Dissolution of Dominic Boot sees poor, hapless Dominic’s (Marc Webb) day disintegrating and the world going mad. His taxi fare spirals further and further out of control and in the process of trying to pay it, he loses his fiancé, job and apartment.
Quite an achievement for a day’s work.
This stage premiere of Stoppard’s first radio play, written in 1964, is cringing, mind-bending stuff; I found myself tugging at my t-shirt in sympathy for Boot.
The second vignette is less coherent. If You’re Glad I’ll be Frank (1966) is a quaint story, playing on the theory that the post office speaking clock (dial TIM, remember?) is in fact a real person.
Here, bus conductor Frank is convinced that the talking clock is his wife Gladys.
Gladys, or TIM, as the Lord of the post office calls her, philosophises on the nature of time-keeping, in between telling the time (pip-pip-pip). She is disgruntled that man has reduced time to mere seconds and minutes, when she knows that really it is infinite.
As an exercise in witticism it works well. The cast have fun with the material and May Moore is particularly lovely as the speaking clock.
All in all, a nice way to spend your lunchtime.
Until July 28
020 7226 1916 |
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