Post by duncan on Mar 11, 2016 12:31:30 GMT
Pwaper Nawty as Danny Dyer would say.
Northern Stage bring to the stage an adaptation of the book (rather than the more famous Michael Caine film) and then change the setting to Newcastle anyway 
Jack is back in Newcastle for the funeral of his brother but he doesn't believe his death was an accident. With Jack being a gangland figure down south he decides to investigate the only way he knows how - with his fists and a gun.
Played out on a set that made up mainly of a tower of foam bricks and with the "ghost" of the brother ever present on stage a cast of 7 make a fist of trying to make us forget that they are playing characters that are far more famous from having once been Caine, Hendry, Alf from Corrie etc.
The sad thing is it just doesn't hang together - the first act is an interminable drag that saw 3 people in the row in front of me leave whilst the second act is in the main a breathtaking ride as Jack enacts his revenge. Aside from Jack and his quest for revenge everyone else is paper thin walking plot expositions who is there solely to move the plot on and then invariably be killed off by a rampaging Jack. Their deaths mean nothing to Jack or anyone else on display so its hard to feel sorry for anyone. At one point off stage Jack bludgeons someone to death with a brick, it should be the most horrific moment of the show but as we don't see the impact it has on other characters, especially one of the other major characters who has a life long relationship with them, it becomes hard to care and the violence becomes cartoonesque and irrelevant.
Be warned the language is exceptionally fruity. The C word is flying around with gay abandon.
Overall a 6/10 for a valiant if flawed effort.
