Frankie (Mark Thomas) is in prison. Maybe not your typical con, as he's botha writer and a political activist. But also a drug user, and, the thing that got him inside, drug dealer. He's in a new prison, a much nicer one than the old Victorian institutions, with one prisoner to a cell and decent sanitation. Frankie looks to survive as best he can, make firneds weho might protect him, make himself useful. A writer is often in demand.
There's a wide range of characters he interacts with, some violent, some needy and vulnerable, and a female prison officer with her own agenda. Thomas plays them all, all carefully crafted and well delineated. He also goes off script, true to his stand-up roots, and interacts with the audience to provide extra laughs. It's a high energy performance (in a very hot room) that never falters and keeps the aiudience constantly engaged. There's prison politics and the poutside world. Reminders of revolution, of British political violence in Northern Ireland (one of the characters may, or may not, be a previous member of the IRA), the excesses of the Thatcher period, a prisoner who is in touch with the realites and hardships of the real world.
Funny. scary, thought provoking and never dull, this is an impressive perfromance of a wide ranging and well considered script. Great stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment