Tim Crouch - The Author

The Author
Venue: Royal Court - Jerwood Theatre
Where: West End
Date Reviewed: 30 September 2009
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Reader Reviews: View and add to our user reviews

The Author, the latest chapter in Tim Crouch's ongoing theatrical experiment, provides an evening that is both frustrating and compelling in equal measure.

Performed and set in the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs - which celebrates its 40th birthday this season - it uses the audience rake as its stage (two seating units are set opposite each other), and the performers, including Crouch himself, sit among us.

It starts jovially, with Adrian Howells, who rather puts one in mind of the comedian Alan Carr, warming us up with some feel-good banter. “Isn't this great?” he excitedly asks an audience member. “Kind of”, she nervously replies. (Another on press night made his feelings plain by walking out shortly after this exchange.)

It soon becomes apparent that Howells is representative of us, the audience. He discusses his membership of the Royal Court friends scheme as two actors, Esther Smith and Vic Llewellyn, talk about their experiences playing a father and daughter in a sexually abusive relationship in one of Crouch's plays - Llewellyn in particular is shown as a victim of demanding authorial intentions.

Crouch - the author and “darling of the universities” - in turn describes his moral breakdown during the same period, largely caused by the effect of violent imagery on his psyche while researching the play, which builds to a shocking confession (chillingly told in total darkness).

As an examination of storytelling technique and audience custom, it's often fascinating. Although I wouldn't go as far to say I felt a particularly strong bond with my co bench-warmers, there is something inherently exciting about feeling involved in a play, as opposed to merely watching it. That said, there's nothing new in this approach, and there's a slight feeling that as a puppeteer Crouch doesn't quite have full command of the strings.

The speeches are regularly interspersed by music - designed, says Crouch in a script note, to act as a “release valve”. But it's not a release valve we need, and these interruptions can grow irritating, even if they highlight how easily our attentions can be commanded by ambient music. As theatregoers we are trained in customs, and Crouch delights in exposing these for the tricks they are.

I was sharing a pew with Crouch on the night, and found the close proximity of him at first alarming, but subsequently spellbinding. He's a first-rate storyteller, and though that story may well be a difficult and fragmented one to hear, it nevertheless provides a worthy addition, and knowing nod, to the rich and experimental canon of the Theatre Upstairs.

Reader Reviews

Score	Comment	Date
	Excrutiatingly awful. I agree with rds completely. - fred	26 Oct 09
	The idea, as far as I can make out, is that we, the audience, are as much a part of "The Play" as the writer and the actors and therefore we must respond accordingly as if collaborators in the plot. From this simple premise Tim Crouch embarks with us on a surreal journey, but one that only he has set down and has control of. This became immediately apparent early into it when a real member of the audience asked the actress playing Esther why she was here. At this point Crouch immediately cut in and changed the subject - the device failed at that point. The piece started with and was interspersed with deliciously gushing contributions from Adrian, The Audience Member. Various and confused contributions came later from Esther and from an other actor, Vic, both playing characters from a Crouch play. The only other actor is The Author,Tim, played by Crouch who intersperses the other's ramblings with his own very disturbed contributions. All in all a somewhat bizarre menage of disparate accounts that would, ordinarily, make your hair stand on end, but by the time we get to the nitty gritty nothing will rise - except those leaving early. I hope to be informed, entertained and moved by the theatre, but all this event achieved, for me anyway, was a contained embarrassment. He could only get away with it with a middle class audience - try it elsewhere like in Plaistow and he would still be running now. Pretentious? No it's not good enough! It doesn't even deserve me laying into it either. I guess my real reaction is a kind of sadness for it seems to me, when there are so many struggling writers out there desperately trying to get their work put on, that the Royal Court should waste our time and their resources on this feeble offering. The only thing I can say for it was it introduced me to the obvious talents of Adrian Howells, Adrian, the best thing to come out of it. The program notes state: "The Author" explores our responsibilities to what we choose to look at in the world and how we choose to act accordingly. I'd like to say to that - my arse, but I won't. All that occurred was a bunch of middle class people sat for what seemed an eternity wondering whether they were brave enough to get up and walk out or sit passively through it to the bitter end. There ought to be a society for the protection of actors and audiences from writers of the likes of Mr Crouch. Aaahh! - rds	19 Oct 09

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