REVIEW
✭✭✭✭✭ 5/5
Loot
Queens Theatre
Billet Lane, Hornchurch.
RM11 1QT
25 Feb – 7 March 26
Joe Orton still has the power to make people laugh
✭✭✭✭✭ 5/5
Loot
Queens Theatre
Billet Lane, Hornchurch.
RM11 1QT
25 Feb – 7 March 26
Joe Orton still has the power to make people laugh
I am a great fan of Joe Orton, so much so that I have directed amateur performances of Loot and What the Butler Saw in recent years. I love his surreal take on life, although now with the Woke generation I am unsure whether his comedy makes people feel uncomfortable. However, I needn’t have worried, the audience loved this production of Loot.
Joe Orton wrote the play in 1965 to be deliberately controversial and thought provoking. When it was first performed, it was a flop. However, when the original censored text was restored, it became a staple of theatrical life. He always wanted to outrage, and although now his satire regarding the Catholic Church, death, funerals of loved ones, homosexuality and, police brutality no longer shocks, it is still hilariously funny. It was a shame that Orton did not live long enough to see the success of his plays as his partner in the sixties murdered him.
This anarchic comedy follows the fortunes of Hal and Dennis, two young petty criminals who have raided a bank. They need to hide their ill- gotten gains and it just so happens it is the day of the funeral of Hal’s mother. The plot then descends into chaos, Inspector Truscott is on their case and they hide the ‘Loot’ in the coffin. Poor old mum is tossed upside down in a wardrobe. She is then turned into a dressmaker’s dummy disguised as an Egyptian mummy.
The play depends on the exuberant acting of the characters especially Truscott. This police inspector is a pyscho, who thinks he’s in disguise as a man from the Water Board, because he’s wearing a trilby. His manic, eye rolling behaviour, twisting of each word, and flinging out witty aphorisms at the drop of a hat (or trilby) commands the stage. In his disguise he’s still trying to arrest people and ‘duffing’ them up. Played by Nicholas Karimi he is hysterically funny.
In the beginning, the play is a bit low key. However, it is soon brought to life by the arrival of Hal (Samuel Armfield) a loud, cockney geezer and his friend Dennis (Omar Bynon). Dennis has made five women pregnant on the dance floor doing the rumba.
Their irreverent antics with the corpse and the roughing up by Truscott bring a lot of physicality to the stage, which turns, into a slapstick comedy. The Inspector has Hal on the floor in tears stating, ‘In any other political system, you would be on the floor in tears,’ not realising he has Hal on the floor in tears.
The dead woman’s husband, McCleavy (Simon Startin) is the only innocent in the play, He really comes into his own after he’s involved in a car crash and attacked by an Afghan hound. He crashes around the stage in a complete daze, unsure what is going on around him. However, Tanya-Loretta Dee as the sexy nurse who has murdered seven husbands, and has her eye on McLeavy as number eight, is a little underplayed.
Loot is a clever play with razor sharp dialogue, farcical situations, and completely over the top characters. Everyone is demented, and Truscott is one of the funniest characters ever invented. However, the humour is very dark.
As the director, Bethany Pitts states,
‘Orton reinvented farce to go beyond light entertainment and to truly hold a mirror up to the dark underbelly of our society.’
However, it makes us laugh as he does so.
Review Jacquee Storozynski-Toll
The show continues 20 Feb – 7 March 26
Box Office 01708 443333
Prices
Tickets £14* - £30*
Access £14* - £22*
Under 18s £10*
18 - 26 £10*
*+70p QNext fee
Running Time
140 minutes
Access Details
A limited number of Essential Companion tickets are available for patrons aged 14 and over with disability-related access needs. All children under 14 must be accompanied by a paying adult (18+) at all performances.
Pre-recorded Audio Description: Tue 24 Feb onwards
@QueensTheatreH | www.queens-theatre.co.uk
Joe Orton wrote the play in 1965 to be deliberately controversial and thought provoking. When it was first performed, it was a flop. However, when the original censored text was restored, it became a staple of theatrical life. He always wanted to outrage, and although now his satire regarding the Catholic Church, death, funerals of loved ones, homosexuality and, police brutality no longer shocks, it is still hilariously funny. It was a shame that Orton did not live long enough to see the success of his plays as his partner in the sixties murdered him.
This anarchic comedy follows the fortunes of Hal and Dennis, two young petty criminals who have raided a bank. They need to hide their ill- gotten gains and it just so happens it is the day of the funeral of Hal’s mother. The plot then descends into chaos, Inspector Truscott is on their case and they hide the ‘Loot’ in the coffin. Poor old mum is tossed upside down in a wardrobe. She is then turned into a dressmaker’s dummy disguised as an Egyptian mummy.
The play depends on the exuberant acting of the characters especially Truscott. This police inspector is a pyscho, who thinks he’s in disguise as a man from the Water Board, because he’s wearing a trilby. His manic, eye rolling behaviour, twisting of each word, and flinging out witty aphorisms at the drop of a hat (or trilby) commands the stage. In his disguise he’s still trying to arrest people and ‘duffing’ them up. Played by Nicholas Karimi he is hysterically funny.
In the beginning, the play is a bit low key. However, it is soon brought to life by the arrival of Hal (Samuel Armfield) a loud, cockney geezer and his friend Dennis (Omar Bynon). Dennis has made five women pregnant on the dance floor doing the rumba.
Their irreverent antics with the corpse and the roughing up by Truscott bring a lot of physicality to the stage, which turns, into a slapstick comedy. The Inspector has Hal on the floor in tears stating, ‘In any other political system, you would be on the floor in tears,’ not realising he has Hal on the floor in tears.
The dead woman’s husband, McCleavy (Simon Startin) is the only innocent in the play, He really comes into his own after he’s involved in a car crash and attacked by an Afghan hound. He crashes around the stage in a complete daze, unsure what is going on around him. However, Tanya-Loretta Dee as the sexy nurse who has murdered seven husbands, and has her eye on McLeavy as number eight, is a little underplayed.
Loot is a clever play with razor sharp dialogue, farcical situations, and completely over the top characters. Everyone is demented, and Truscott is one of the funniest characters ever invented. However, the humour is very dark.
As the director, Bethany Pitts states,
‘Orton reinvented farce to go beyond light entertainment and to truly hold a mirror up to the dark underbelly of our society.’
However, it makes us laugh as he does so.
Review Jacquee Storozynski-Toll
The show continues 20 Feb – 7 March 26
Box Office 01708 443333
Prices
Tickets £14* - £30*
Access £14* - £22*
Under 18s £10*
18 - 26 £10*
*+70p QNext fee
Running Time
140 minutes
Access Details
A limited number of Essential Companion tickets are available for patrons aged 14 and over with disability-related access needs. All children under 14 must be accompanied by a paying adult (18+) at all performances.
Pre-recorded Audio Description: Tue 24 Feb onwards
@QueensTheatreH | www.queens-theatre.co.uk