Gertrude's Secret

Our Review:

10 January 2007

A series of monologues spoken by defeated, self-deluding or lonely characters can’t but invoke memories of Alan Bennett’s masterly Talking Heads. But Benedick West’s nine short pieces (of which eight are performed daily under Andrew Loudon’s direction) make no more than a hasty foray into this territory. Each character speaks for some ten minutes, usually revealing a secret or reversal of feeling or a failing obvious to us but unacknowledged by the speaker. There is little time to develop psychological depth or to give more than a hint of why things have reached whatever pretty pass we are presented with. These are quick, broad-brush sketches, bite-size tasters and as such rarely satisfying.

Women outnumber men. Here is Maureen (who, interestingly, acknowledges the audience; it is not always clear whether we are interlocutors, eavesdroppers or inside the speaker’s head) making an exaggerated case for a relationship with a man she is - as swiftly becomes clear - relen...

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Latest User Review

86.31.104.63) - 13 January 2007:

A brilliant evening, the writing both very funny and sad, great acting and direction. ...

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