Gallowglass @ Darlington Hippodrome

Gallowglass at Darlington Hippodrome

A tense and claustrophobic thriller which explores the dangers of unrequited love when left to fester for years, Gallowglass, by Ruth Rendell, takes the audience into the mind of a deranged lover who has spent years plotting how to be reunited with his supposed betrothed. 

A chance meeting in exceptional circumstances on a railway platform between recently released mental patient Joe (Dean Smith) and erudite (but somewhat psychotic) Sandor (Joe Eyre) leads to an unlikely relationship.  Eyre plays Sandor as a controlling, highly functioning sociopath whose knife-edge personality disorders make for very uncomfortable viewing, never letting the audience relax into believing they know him.  Smith’s Joe grows in confidence, never more so than when he recognises that he is Sandor’s ‘Gallowglass’ – a Chiefs Servant – and is happy to have a definition.

Between them, they explore Sandor’s past life in Italy, his appreciation of fine wine and his recounting of tales of kidnap and mystery, yet all the while there is an under-current that he has been planning something for many years and just needed a stooge to trigger him into action.  Very quickly, he convinces Joe to undertake surveillance on a rich couple’s luxury home, with the initial suggestion that they are going to burgle the property.  In truth, Sandor has designs to recreate a kidnap/ransom that he had ‘heard’ about whilst living in Italy.

The rich couple, Ralph (London’s Burning’s Richard Walsh)  and Nina (the stunningly beautiful Florence Cady), are very security conscious, driven by the fact that they live in a remote country house but in truth there is something else giving them cause to be overly cautious.  They employ Paul Garnett (Emmerdale’s Steve Marchant, Paul Opacic) to be their driver, support and additional help, mainly to look after the young and attractive Nina.  Paul, and his daughter Jess move into the converted barn and begin to settle into village life, but when trips to the coast and confiding conversations become the norm, he and Nina find themselves being drawn towards one another.  It is this compromise that creates a dilemma for Paul and ultimately a decision for Nina.

It is now that all paths seem to cross – Sandor recreates his past, Paul finds his future being put in doubt and Joe is left being swept along with twisted loyalties.  The ending, though not entirely surprising, was still enough of a twist to leave some in the audience thinking “ah, now I see”.

This is most certainly a tale of two halves – the first act is very deliberate, slow at times in creating the foundation for the characters, almost like being dealt a hand of cards, then having them taken back and the same ones dealt again. (The cast did very well not to be upstaged by a rogue pigeon who had taken to perching up in the flies)  The second plots a pretty predictable path through to the crescendo which, although quicker in pace, just doesn’t quite have the urgency needed to grab the audience and whisk them to the final ‘reveal’.  

There are some plot holes and inconsistencies, especially around Paul’s previous job(s) and his ‘reactions’ which, given the amount of time on stage, could have been easily filled, or it could be better suited to being an hour long single act play with more even pacing throughout, but on the whole this is a well performed thriller.

The Business of Murder @ Darlington Civic

You’re not trying to work out whodunit, more why’d he do it ?

Richard Harris, well known and much published writer, has penned a pseudo nostalgic look back at the 70’s whodunit in this tense and twisting 3 header threaded by a Dostoevsky theme and asking one of the most basic questions, what would you do for revenge?.

Set in a flat in London, the play is very much in 2 halves; 1^st part centres on Paul Opacic as Hallett, the sweeny-esque ‘sarf Londarn’ copper, a stereotypical Detective Sergeant portraying confidence bordering on the arrogance hewn from total belief that he is the law. Playing against him is Robert Gwilym as Stone, at first glance a bumbling, socially uncomfortable loner whose main intent seems to be the salvation of his ne’er seen wayward son, but who in reality could be just one wrong glance away from psychopathic fury.

Stone has contacted Hallett to help him in a bid to break his son away from the seedy side of life, yet, right from the start, there is a nagging doubt that things aren’t all that they seem.  Despite appearing slow and dodderish, Stone occasionally has moments of total lucidity, almost prophetic in clarity and dangerously accurate in predicting how Hallett will react and through it all there sits an undercurrent of dislike towards the policeman bordering on despisement.

The second act introduces Dee played by Joanna Higson; Dee is a now famous playwright but was once a young journalist who used her real life reporting experience to fashion the plot lines and characters for her plays. Initially drawn to the flat by Stone’s attempt to get her to review his wife’s manuscript, we are quickly left in no doubt that there is far more to Stone’s motives.

The tension mounts as past interactions are revealed; Hallett was a young and determined DC who made his own judgements and then manufactured investigations to support them, Dee was not above twisting the truth if it gave a more dramatic end to her plays.  The depth of Stone’s planning and manipulations then come to the fore and whilst for many the ending was as expected, there is no one who could honestly say the route taken to get there was signposted.

As a new play from the Middle Ground Theatre Company, this suffers from being over-wordy and would benefit from trimming; the pace fluctuates too much and there is a noticeable lull in the middle of both acts which tests the audience’s concentration.  It is the brilliant acting of Opacic, Higson and the dangerously good Gwilym that rescues the plot and keeps minds from wandering but with a few nips & tucks this could be a great ‘modern’ murder mystery in keeping with the greats of the genre.  Perhaps writer and director need to revisit the adage “less is more”.