Reviews

Dead Heavy Fantastic (Liverpool)

Editorial Staff

Recently divorced Frank is an innocent abroad and finds himself in one hell of a country, judging from the video background which shows a typical night out: bars; night clubs; emergency wards – a posh apartment, courtesy of Vince, though good manners are the last thing to expect from him. Trouble is (apart from being his middle name), girlfriend Cindy is Frank’s blind date.

One night in bad trouble… the latter gets to do all sorts, and meets ‘em, including 21st century Liver birds, Vicki and Dawn (Jess Schofield and Helen Carter). The latter has a couple of memorably larger than life roles, as does David Carlyle, imaginatively playing a bigger assortment of nuts than you get in the average chocolate box. Meanwhile, Samantha Robinson puts the ‘f’ into feisty as Cindy, and Stephen Fletcher, an Elvis lookalike dj with an ‘A’ level in sarcasm, turns the tables as nerve-wracked Graeme, Vince’s accountant.

Con O’Neill makes an amazing antihero, and had the audience laughing at almost every word; seriously; nothing intrinsically funny about ‘vital’ – it’s the way he says it. And so volatile, a whole new word needs inventing. You wouldn’t want to meet him down a dark alley (nor anywhere else), yet everybody ends up hoping for a happy ending for him and Cindy. Frank, too, though his is a bit too pat, if well deserved; Alan Stocks, marvelously ordinary, is ultimately more than just Vince’s fall guy.

A sterling cast in a hilarious play, they all keep it zipping along at high speed, to say the least of it. If you fancy a cracking night out: snap, crackle, with a lot of pop – go for it.

– Carole Baldock