Harking back to student trials and tribulations of Oxford 1968, where the staging of Coriolanus seems to provide equal angst and division between the pot-smoking mix-bag inhabitants of the great halls of leaning, Alan Franks autobiographically-inspired account of friction within factions seems a little light and whimsical to really pack any sort of punch or insight into any movement of force surrounding Vietnam dissension or literary pomposity.
A World Elsewhere is slight, at best, without the vim or vigour one would expect from a play in which the world stakes were so high and the new-world order of freedom of speech, sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll ruled the waves!
The overall production is lacking in the same. TV sitcom-style delivery – where each line is delivered as a line - and awkward staging just leaves one worrying about the demonstrable embarrassment of the actors rather than focusing on the play, the issues, the themes, threats, stakes, epiphanies and resolutions.
Unfinished character developments and story lines really just leaves one exiting the theatre with a sense of ‘what was the point’ and a feeling that this play - old-fashioned and creaky - should really be probed for what it is trying to say as opposed to what it is not saying!
Dusty new writing.
Orlando Weston
