Review by Mark Fisher
Big Baby
10 Oct 2005 in Dance & Drama
North Edinburgh Arts Centre, on tour 2005
Car journey. © Drew Farrell, 2005
YOU’D NEVER want to argue that young people should be denied the range of emotions that adult audiences take for granted, but Brendan Murray’s play for teenagers is laden with a level of cynicism and despair that would be hard for any age to stomach.
It starts off bright and cheery enough, in Douglas Irvine’s entertaining production for Visible Fictions, staged on a set by Caroline Grebbell that’s half music hall, half pop-up theatre. We’re in the mid-19th century where two ordinary country folk, Janet and John (Claire Knight and PJ Henry), fall in love and agree to marry. All rosy cheeks and fruity poetry, the two await the arrival of a baby, finding themselves full of hope and big ideas for the future.
Time passes with alarming speed – the whole play takes place over just nine consecutive days – and the baby arrives already blessed with the gift of speech. Before they know it, the child – brilliantly realised in a large-headed puppet manipulated by David Walshe – is quoting from ‘Hamlet’ and talking in Latin. Realising they’ve got a genius on their hands, they head to London to capitalise on his talents, first by giving him an education, then by turning him into a theatrical novelty act.
As an allegory for the dangers of unbridled capitalism, Murray’s play is an angry broadside
It all goes horribly wrong, as they are exploited by a string of self-interested chancers and charlatans. Soon economic necessity propels Janet and John into criminality and prostitution, while the baby degenerates into nothing more than an appetite. The optimism of the start is replaced by a sorry cannibalistic greed.
As an allegory for the dangers of unbridled capitalism, Murray’s play is an angry broadside, demonstrating how even with the best of intentions, honourable people can be dragged low by a system dependent on endless, mindless consumerism. But his vision is so bleak and unsparing, the implications so fatalistic, that you find yourself being drawn down with it. Political theatre – especially that pitched at a young and idealistic audience – should be empowering, but this is just depressing.
It’s a shame, because it’s an unusual and lively show, performed with energy, wit and theatricality.
Visible Fictions’ tour includes performances at Corran Halls, Oban (19 October), Culloden Academy, Inverness (24 October), and Birnam Institute, Dunkeld (2 November).
© Mark Fisher, 2005
