Bare
theSpaces on the Mile @ The Radisson
6-28 August, 17.20
Funny thing, expectation. Unhyped and tucked away in a lower-profile Festival venue, Bare probably seemed like a rare, undiscovered gem: slick, energetic, well-polished. A Fringe First later and thoughts of bright futures ahead, it feels like a well-executed work of little substance and less originality.
Skinner is a working-class boy whose locally notorious strength catches the attention of an underground bare-knuckle fighting kingpin. Out of his depth in a world of power, money and police corruption, his family – and once straightforward morality – falls apart. Paul-Michael Giblin gives a strong lead performance but faces cliche after cliche, complete with director, writer and co-star Renny Krupinski’s oily, homoerotic, philosophising gang-lord.
Wearily predictable, overbearing, overlong and painfully overwritten – with cockney idiom spiralling into unbroken streams of metaphor and characters continually explaining, rather than communicating, emotions – the brilliantly choreographed fight scenes become an odd highlight in an otherwise well produced but entirely unrewarding production.
– Will Young
