Clever Dick

Synopsis

17th June 1945. Thirty days before the dawn of the Atomic Age at Trinity, New Mexico. Less than two months before Little Boy was dropped over Hiroshima. Richard Feynman - safecracker, flirt and genius physicist - can't tell his left from his right. He takes a wrong turn out of Albuquerque and ends up in the last room of the only hotel in Socorro, in the middle of the desert. Lost and confused he hasn't noticed that a man with a weakness for hot dogs has been following him. Next he is joined by an inquisitive 18 year old virgin and then the first husband of Elizabeth Taylor arrives. Random elements collide as Feynman finds himself thoroughly entangled in an unlikely tale of espionage, the bomb and a Couch's Spadefoot Toad.

Our Review:

23 May 2006

The title, Clever Dick, of promising playwright Crispin Whittell could refer to the author himself, who has crammed his new farce of espionage, the atomic bomb, mistaken identity (and bedrooms), nudity, Einstein’s theory of relativity and a bouncing nun, with bits of almost every other living British playwright except, possibly, for Howard Barker.

Thank you Michael Frayn for the case history of the American scientist Richard Feynman (Frayn-man?) who cracked the safe containing the secrets of the atomic bomb in 1945 and has got lost in the desert in New Mexico as he doesn’t know his left from his right.

Cheers, Tom Stoppard (and a nod to Terry Johnson), for manufacturing an encounter with Conrad Hilton Jr (here called “Little Boy”), scion of the hotel dynasty, whose date with teenage virgin Matilda leads him to Feynman’s hotel room. And good on you, Ray Cooney, for winding up the action with a bonehead Private Dick who finally, and specta...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

86.143.100.107) - 6 June 2006:

Much too clever for its own good. Well not really,it's not really clever at all. Clever words & phrases but not a clever play. How I wish that I had joined the others & not returned after the interval. Three of us left & three stayed: I think that they had the best of it. What's good about it? Well it's short. It's not a play but a series of little set pieces which don't come out as a whole. It's like putting a bad stand-up on the large stage like the Oliver & expecting the stage & theatre to be filled, it was not. Do miss it....

Read more and add your own review