Cruising

Synopsis

Maureen is a pensioner in search of passion. After 33 blind dates, 12 cruises and one broken heart, she is still determined to find Mr Right. But when best friend Margaret beats her to the altar, Maureen has her doubts - is Margaret just on the rebound and, more importantly, will she lose her pension?

Our Review:

12 June 2006

Here is an oddity to challenge all notions of authenticity in the theatre and take the “verbatim” craze to a new frontier of some sort. In Cruising at the Bush Theatre, a short, sweet look at love and sex among senior citizens, the five actors wear earphones throughout and reproduce the exact words, inflections, coughs and splutters of real life interviewees.

I can’t imagine how this works, for the actors must surely be reproducing something in their own voices while the recorded voices have moved on. And what, anyway, is the virtue of exact reproduction when theatre, in the language department, is an art of refinement and rhythm?

Alan Bennett jots down phrases in tea-shops and bus shelters, but then turns them into something else. Mike Leigh, improvising with the characters devised by his actors, finally orchestrates a script to create an impression of spontaneity.

Recorded Delivery is a new company based at the Actors Centre in Covent Gard...

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Latest User Review

62.171.194.44) - 24 June 2006:

Funny, passionate and delicately moving - a good night out. Nice to see the writer actually starring in her own show. TW...

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