The Spiral / Behind the Image - Rough Cuts - Royal Court Theatre

For a performance to break new ground, seemingly, is admirable. For it to do so not very well is a real shame. It must be said, though, that this is what Rough Cuts is for and the Royal Court should be applauded for it, even if it produces work that one hopes is not the future of theatre. Here is a show - The Spiral - that really wears its politics on its sleeve. And then proceed to push that sleeve in your face so you can smell every last particle of politics there is in it. Such a thing generally makes me come out in a rash, but at least this performance knew what it was doing and did it very comprehensively.

A new work by Michael Bhim, and directed by Dominic Cooke (the thankfully hands on but a little unguided artistic director of the old building), this play presents what feels like scripted verbatim realism. It is taken from interviews. This is a shame. I would have greater respect for this endeavour if it had been the creation of the playwright. Be that as it may, it was a well crafted, multi-voiced performance that did something slightly novel with verbatim. It worked best when characters were speaking over each other, a sort of multi-layered verbal score where the individual words were not entirely audible. It did not work when there were set piece conflicts and clear moments of "real" interaction. At least it was a reading that did not require the actors to sit on plastic chairs for an hour, but gave them the freedom to walk around and knock into each other. It was the true version of the staged reading.

It does, however, lack some artistry - although, given that the circumstance is a debate on Islam in Britain, you can forgive some (but only some) of the expositional text. It did, thankfully, have the good sense to undermine statistics with comedy. Inevitably there are some false starts. Some characters are drawn in heavy lines. In plays like this the only response to "That's not what that character would say" is "It's not a character, it's a real person". Theatre is not about taking the conconsidered statements people makes and putting them on stage. Show we characters you have created. Be an artist and not an editor. Mind you, as usual for a piece of verbatim, this play could have benfitted from some stronger editied ("hey, we have a lot in common" is the awful lesson for the day thrown at us in the end.) It also could have had a good ten minutes lobbed off the end.

At least it had a strong vision of the many voices of Muslim Britain and did not feel it had to hold itself together with a narrative or dramaturgical coherence. So, while this is a form of theatre I really do not enjoy (with some exceptions), I applaud its strong rendition.

Behind the Image by Alia Bano and directed by Nina Raine, unfortunately, failed to provide so strong a follow up. Set up like a conversation, this play also claimed to represent the differening sides of being a Muslim in Britain, specifically a female Muslim. It had a decidedly liberal viewpoint (you know, just for once it would be interesting to have a verbatim piece of theatre where the implied politics of the maker was slightly different to the political correct orthodoxy...it all seems so limited in scope on the political spectrum and given the fact that most of the audience read the Guardian anyway, do we really need to hear the same sermon again? I'd rather stick to the newspaper myself). Anyway. This conversation was one of those in which everyone is waiting for their turn to speak rather than actually listening to one another, which would have seemed a much more compassionate approach. I hate conversations like that in life and seeing it on stage did not do much for my opinion of them.

Unlike The Spiral, here we did see some attempts at cloaking the political affiliations in some unsubtle ways. But as we went through discussion about identity, alcohol, arranged marraiges and head scarfs (all examining the place of women in Islam and Muslim women in Britain) it was pretty clear where the playwright stood (with us, holding a copy of the Guardian). One of the characters at one point says "Let me explain", which is what the playwright wanted to do - and succeeded in doing - throughout.

I will point out fine performances from Loo Brealey and Naomi Bentley who really captured a playfulness and enjoyment which brought the text alive. They were excellent and Brealey especially is one to look out for.

That does point to something about this play - it could be pretty good. It needs to cut out the exposition, stop being so earnestly political, and find a way of staging the event that brings these words to life. In fairness, a staged reading is not the best platform for this work. It would work better probably off stage altogether, as a documentary perhaps.

Am I simply going to have to accept verbatim for the beast that it is? I only hope more people remember, as DV8 did with To Be Straight With You, that even when you are dealing with words from "real" people, that does not stop you being an artist.

- James Grogan.