Review: 2084 (Pure Expression)

Friday 8th February 2019
Central Library, Manchester

On Friday, I was at Central Library, watching another play for North Manchester FM. This time, it was 2084 by theatre company Pure Expression. A (slightly) shorter version of this review aired on A Helping of History on Tuesday, but here’s the (slightly) longer version.

2084 is an immersive theatre performance, adapted from George Orwell’s novel 1984. It is being staged at Manchester Central Library by Pure Expression, a theatre company who specialize in adapting classic texts for unique performance environments (such as libraries, galleries and museums). Pure Expression’s last performance in Manchester was an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The current show, 2084, is directed by Rosanna Mallinson, and performed by Aamira Challenger, Robin Hellier and Simon Gleave.

When I first saw the press release, I was very intrigued by the concept of 2084. I was really keen to see how 1984 was adapted for the twenty-first century, and I was fascinated by the idea that this would be an immersive production – the show’s blurb appeared to be hinting that the audience would be made complicit in Big Brother’s hunt for traitors and thoughtcriminals. This is rather a bold direction to choose, situating the audience as new recruits at the Ministry of Truth, rather than sympathetic observers.

2084 begins wonderfully. The audience are divided into groups in the foyer of Central Library and given headsets. Soft music is pumped in through the headphones and then – something happens. I don’t like to give spoilers in reviews, so I won’t tell you exactly what happens – but suffice to say, I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck when it became clear the show was properly beginning.

This immersive experience has headset-wearing groups led through the grand corridors and spaces of Manchester Central Library. If you’re not fully familiar with the building, this would be rather disorienting (in a good way), but for me it was a great way to experience a building I know very well in a different way and to look at it in a different light. The performance’s opening makes good use of the space, and this was by far my favourite part of the show. (It’s worth noting, though, that this first part of the show involves a bit of running around and cramming into a lift – you have to keep up with the pack if you don’t want to miss anything.)

After this opening, the audience is led into one of Central Library’s performance spaces for the (somewhat) more static body of the play. At this point, we begin to experience something closer to an adaptation of sections of Orwell’s novel. The conceit is that we (the audience, that is) are new recruits at the Ministry of Truth, and that the performance we are watching is our induction – and an introduction to the power and control of the Party.

Guided through this by a Party member – a loose version of O’Brien from Orwell’s novel – we watch the unfolding story of Winston and Julia’s relationship. The production is not entirely static, with the audience being commanded to stand, move, march and salute at various times. Iconic elements of Orwell’s novel are staged – the Two Minutes Hate, Winston and Julia’s tryst, Room 101 – and the audience is invited to look on the proceedings as good Party members. These scenes are fairly faithful to Orwell’s novel, and so if you’ve read the book then you’ll know the basic trajectory the show is following.

However, I found myself frustrated by the selection of scenes being staged. 2084 centres Winston and Julia’s relationship entirely, to the exclusion of other elements of Orwell’s text. There is no mention, for instance, of Goldstein and the Brotherhood, and the Party member leading us through the ‘induction’ isn’t quite O’Brien. During the Two Minutes Hate sequence, our attention is drawn to the behaviour of the actors on the stage, rather than to the audio-visuals accompanying the performance. While the audience is encouraged to stamp and shout along, there’s no real sense of what the sequence signifies, beyond an opportunity for a clandestine encounter.

More frustrating still, in my opinion, is the presentation of Winston and Julia’s relationship as one of real romance, rather than rebellious expediency. The play essentially reimagines Orwell’s novel as a love story, with Big Brother’s greatest cruelty being the separation of two romantic idealists. For this cynical Generation X-er, it all seems a little bit… well… Millennial. Or perhaps I’m just getting more anti-individualist in my old age (how very Big Brother).

As noted above, 2084 flirts with the idea of audience complicity. The show’s conceit is that the audience are potential Ministry of Truth workers – we are being led through an induction designed to encourage condemnation of Winston’s actions. Overall, I felt that this complicity wasn’t fully developed. It was fun (in a creepy way) to see how quickly everyone got to their feet and marched on command, but this didn’t go any further. Perhaps that’s for the best… the Room 101 sequence was (as expected) fairly disturbing, and it was probably best that the audience watches as shocked witnesses rather than an involved mob. Nevertheless, I was somewhat disappointed at the show’s ending: it reveals something of a misconception about how groupthink and complicity work in Orwell’s, and seems to imply that the Party would be looking for unusually cruel individuals, and not an acquiescent herd. Still, it provoked a grim laugh, which was much needed.

I found myself wondering why this production was titled 2084, rather than simply 1984, given that it is an adapted (rather than updated) version of Orwell’s novel. However, while I had some frustrations watching the show – particularly around the rewritten ending – I’ve found myself thinking about it a lot afterwards. It’s really made me think about the representation of individualism and selfish desire in Orwell’s novel and in dystopian fiction generally – and it’s encouraged me to reflect on why, exactly, I am so unsympathetic to a version of the story that has Winston and Julia fall truly in love.

Ultimately, theatre should be thought-provoking – even discomforting – and 2084 is certainly that. It’s also an entertaining and fun way to experience the grandeur of Manchester’s Central Library. Cynical Orwell-purists (like myself) may find it annoyingly selective in its adaptation, but it’s certainly an interesting production and worth experiencing.

2084 is on at Manchester Central Library until 14th February.

Poirot Project: The Case of the Missing Will (review)

This post is part of my 2016-19 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘The Yellow Iris’.

Beware: Here be Spoilers

The fourth episode of the fifth series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 7th February 1993. It was based on the short story of the same name, which was published in The Sketch on October 1923 – though the closeness of this adaptation is something I’m going to come back to shortly.

Christie’s short story is a neat – but rather straightforward – little puzzle for the great detective. It begins with Poirot and Hastings receiving a new client, which Hastings says is ‘rather a pleasant change from [their] routine work’ (though he doesn’t say what, exactly, he counts as ‘routine work’). Hastings’s happiness is short-lived, however, as it transpires that the client, Violet Marsh, is… shock, horror!... a New Woman:

‘I am not a great admirer of the so-called New Woman myself, and, in spite of her good looks, I was not particularly prepossessed in her favour.’

Poirot seems to quite like Violet, though, so the reader is prepossessed in her favour. Is this fair? Hastings can be a pretty bad judge of women… but then again, so can Poirot. After all, it’s Poirot who is taken in by Nick Buckley and Jane Wilkinson, and he’s got a definite soft spot for Jacqueline de Bellefort and (obviously) Vera Rossakoff. Fortunately, we don’t have to worry too much about these murderers and jewel thieves, as Violet Wilson has come with quite a different sort of puzzle.

Violet was the niece (and only relative) of rich businessman Andrew Marsh. During his lifetime, her uncle held ‘peculiar and deeply-rooted ideas as to the upbringing of women’, and was not happy when his niece decided to go to Girton. To teach her that her new-fangled ‘book learning’ is no match for his masculine brains, he uses his will as a final posthumous battle of wits: Marsh leaves all his property to Violet for one year, during which time she must ‘prove her wits’ or the fortune will pass to charities.

After Marsh died, Violet made a quick search of the house, couldn’t find anything obvious, and so immediately came to hire Poirot to solve the puzzle for her. Which he does.

It really is as simple as that.

Poirot visits Crabtree Manor, Marsh’s former home, spots a couple of inconsistencies, and then uses these to ascertain the whereabouts of a second will (dated shortly after the first), which leaves everything unconditionally to Violet. To be brutally honest, it’s a bit of a waste of his excellent little grey cells.

Hastings is thoroughly disappointed by the whole business. He seems bored as he narrates Poirot’s forensic search of the house, unimpressed by Poirot’s discovery of a label that doesn’t match the others, and confused by a last-minute epiphany on a train. As Poirot makes a dash back to Crabtree Manor for the big reveal, Hastings is grumpy and complains that Poirot isn’t paying him enough attention.

Despite his friend’s strop, Poirot is delighted by the case and sums it all up with ‘triumph’. He’s worked out the puzzle, and his client has won the battle of wits. He suggests that this means she has ‘justified her choice of life and elaborate education’, and also that her uncle’s trick was always intended to vindicate his niece’s academic career (assuming she was successful, of course).

Cranky Hastings sees things differently. ‘The old man really won,’ he grumbles.

‘“But no, Hastings. It is your wits that go astray. Miss Marsh proved the astuteness of her wits and the value of the higher education for women by at once putting the matter in my hands. Always employ the expert. She has amply proved her rights to the money.”
“It’s not fair! You never listen to me! I wish I’d never been born!” I shouted, as I ran out of the room and slammed the door.’

Okay. I made that last bit up.

‘The Case of the Missing Will’ is probably not on many Top 10 Poirot Stories lists. It’s a little bit of fun for both Poirot and the reader (not Hastings though), but it’s not the most memorable case. Nevertheless, Christie was clearly quite happy with the central conceit, as it’s one of the plots she reused later on.

The Miss Marple story ‘Strange Jest’ was first published in the US in 1941 and then in the Strand Magazine in 1944 (under the title ‘A Case of Buried Treasure’).* In this little tale, Miss Marple is introduced to kissing-(third)-cousins Edward Rossiter and Charmian Stroud, the sole heirs to their shared Great-Great-Uncle Mathew. Edward and Charmian are convinced that their Uncle Mathew was in possession of a large fortune in gold bullion, but when he died there was no sign of any fortune. Their friend Jane Helier convinces the lovebirds to enlist Miss Marple’s assistance to get their hands on the loot.

As in ‘The Case of the Missing Will’, the detective here accompanies the putative heirs to the dead man’s house, rifles through his property, and then produce the booty with a flourish. But it’s the differences between the stories that are most interesting.

What I really like about this pair of stories is the way that Christie fitted each of the ‘missing will’ pranks to the idiosyncrasies of the respective sleuths. So, in the earlier story, the clue comes in the form of a label that doesn’t match the others; in the later one, the hints come in sly uses of outdated slang (‘gammon and spinach’, ‘all my eye and Betty Martin’). In ‘Missing Will’, Poirot pores over an account of the day of the will’s writing and finds an interesting item in the schedule; in ‘Strange Jest’, Miss Marple sees a possible parallel with her own Uncle Henry.

It’s lucky that Charmian, Edward and Violet picked their detectives so carefully. I wonder if Miss Marple would’ve guessed Andrew Marsh’s invisible ink – and what would Poirot have made of Uncle Mathew?

I must admit, I really warmed towards ‘The Case of the Missing Will’ after I read ‘Strange Jest’. I thoroughly recommend reading them as companion pieces to remind you of the important differences between Christie’s two famous sleuths.

And now… controversy! It’s time to look at the ITV adaptation of ‘The Case of the Missing Will’, and the first Poirot episode to veer substantively away from its source story. Dun dun dunnnnnn…

‘The Case of the Missing Will’ was directed by John Bruce and written by Douglas Watkinson. It does not follow the plot of Christie’s short story, though it makes some allusions to it.

I’m just going to get this out of the way up front: I don’t think this is a problem. Christie’s short story would not have made a good episode of the TV show – or, at least, not one that would have fit with the rest of the series. I know the 90s was a simpler time, but I just can’t imagine us all curling up in front of the TV to watch David Suchet meticulously looking through drawers for an hour while Hugh Fraser stropped about in the background. I mean, obviously I’d watch that now. But I probably wouldn’t have liked it so much when I was fourteen. I would’ve probably changed over to… *checks 1993 TV listings*… So Haunt Me?? Urgh. Only one thing for it…

Picture Credit: TV Whirl

Fortunately, Douglas Watkinson stopped teenage me from having to make the choice between So Haunt Me and Bamboozle, as the TV version of ‘The Case of the Missing Will’ is a pretty standard Poirot episode. It’s also, in my opinion, very well done – I only realized that it’s not actually a Christie story years later when I started reading the early Poirot short stories.

So, let’s talk about the episode…

We begin with a flashback to 1926. A man named Andrew Marsh (played by Mark Kingston) is seeing in the New Year with friends. As the clock strikes twelve, he announces that he has made a will leaving most of his fortune to a medical foundation, with some to be held in trust for his ward (Violet Wilson)’s education. Violet (played as a child by Stephanie Thwaites) excitedly watches through the bannisters with the sons of Marsh’s friends, Robert Siddaway (Simon Owen) and Peter Baker (Glen Mead), but is dismayed to hear that her guardian imagines that her future lies in marriage, possibly to one of her young companions. Marsh’s friend Phyllida Campion (Susan Tracy) remonstrates, but it is clear that Marsh has rather fixed views on the role of women.

Thus, the stage is set for an episode that alludes to, but doesn’t follow, Christie’s story. We have a rich man named Andrew Marsh, who made his money farming in Australia (as Christie’s character had done), a young (sort of) heir named Violet, and some eyebrow-raising at the idea of women’s education. However, we also have a gang of Siddaways and Bakers (the Bakers here are not quite the household servants of the same names from the short story), a Miss Campion and Dr Pritchard who are not found in the source text. And, most important, Marsh’s will is definitely not missing.

The episode then jumps ahead to the present day. The present day being 1936, of course. Poirot and Hastings are attending a Cambridge University debate in the company of Violet Wilson. (As a side note, the adult Violet is played by Beth Goddard, in the first of her two Poirot appearances. Her second appearance will be in Appointment with Death ¬– another rather loose adaptation of Christie’s work. But we’ll talk about that one later.)

The debate is on women’s education – and women’s rights generally. Marsh is speaking against, and Robert Siddaway (played as an adult by Edward Atterton) is speaking for. Robert makes an unsurprisingly prescient speech, arguing that – when the inevitable war in Europe comes – women will be expected to work in factories, munitions works, and even the armed forces. The guffawing idiots in the audience (clearly oblivious to the roles women played during the war that ended less that twenty years earlier) shout him down with derogatory comments about the W.I. Overcome with outrage at the sexist nonsense she’s hearing, Violet interjects and the meeting descends into boorish chaos.

Robert’s invocation of an upcoming war is interesting here. I’ve said several times in these posts that the TV series conjures up a world that is permanently on the brink of WWII, but never actually fighting it. This episode comes closer than many to accepting that a war will happen: Robert makes specific reference to an alliance between Hitler and Mussolini, and – unexpectedly – we actually see a young British man in army uniform, as the Bakers’ son Peter (now played by Neil Stuke) is home on leave for the duration of the episode.

All this is perfectly in-keeping with the rest of the series, but it just feels a little bit heavy-handed in these opening scenes. That probably doesn’t mean anything though. It’s not like Britain’s relationship with other European nations was a particularly hot topic in early 1993 or anything.

Picture Credit: TV Whirl

Anyway… as I’ve said above, Christie’s short story is simply a treasure hunt for our little Belgian detective. The TV episode has to add a few extra twists and turns to keep us away from Bamboozle. Those twists include… Andrew Marsh decides to change his will! Then he gets murdered! Japp turns up to investigate! And he recognizes shifty Dr Pritchard (Richard Durden)! The will goes missing! Hastings rides a horse! Dr Pritchard says he thinks Andrew has a secret son! Miss Campion gets pushed down a moving staircase! Poirot questions Margaret Baker (Gillian Hanna) about her son Peter! Sarah Siddaway (Rowena Cooper) hints that Robert in Marsh’s son! Miss Lemon investigates!

‘What’s going on? What on earth is happening?’

(Violet has obviously read Christie’s short story.)

Joking aside, the story plays out in a typically Poirot way. A man is murdered shortly after making a new will (which goes missing), and there is a small circle of suspects. A red herring is dismissed (Japp recognized Dr Pritchard from an earlier case), and a misunderstanding is revealed (Marsh’s comments about parenthood meant that he had a daughter, not a son). And in typical Christie fashion (though not actually written by Christie), the case hinges on the question of who has specific medical knowledge (were you listening carefully?).

I have kinda mixed feelings about the episode’s ending. On the one hand, I like that Watkinson brings us back to Christie’s short story at the end. It’s revealed that Violet is, in fact, Marsh’s daughter (her mother is Miss Campion). After the pesky business of the murder has been cleared up, Poirot assures Violet that Marsh wanted to change his will to leave everything to her: ‘As proof that she was his daughter!... And his equal.’ This is a nice echo of Poirot’s assertion in the short story that Violet has ‘proved the astuteness of her wits and the value of the higher education for women’. At least the TV version of Marsh saw the error of his assessment before he died.

On the other hand, the revelation that Violet is Marsh and Miss Campion’s daughter leaves a couple of question marks. Violet grows up believing that she is the daughter of Marsh’s late business partner in Australia. When this unnamed partner – and, presumably, his wife/girlfriend – died, Marsh benevolently assumed guardianship of the orphan and employed Australian Margaret Baker as a nanny. When Marsh moved back to England, he was ‘called away to fight in France’, and Margaret married a policeman (played by Jon Laurimore) and had Peter.

The problem is… this isn’t true. Violet was born in 1913 to Phyllida Campion, while the woman was a student at Cambridge. Her birth was registered in England. So how did the baby end up in Australia? (Presumably she did end up in Australia, as Margaret Baker gives no indication that the nanny story was a lie.) Did Miss Campion send her straight over? Did she go with her? What exactly was the relationship between Phyllida and Andrew? Did no one spot that Andrew made a quick jaunt to Cambridge from Australia in 1912, and then miraculously produced his dead business partner’s child nine months later? Did Andrew falsely register Violet’s birth in Australia – giving her the surname ‘Wilson’? Did no one question why a single man, with apparently no blood relationship to the child, was registering the birth of a baby at least two weeks old (and that’s assuming Miss Campion gave birth and then immediately shoved the baby on a boat), with the implausible claim that both the child’s parents had died. The more you look at it, the harder to swallow it seems.

Quick! Let’s distract ourselves with Hastings on a horse!

Despite my concern about Baby Violet’s ocean voyage, I still really like this episode. There are some great little details to enjoy. Hastings’s horse ride, for instance… This is the moment when our intrepid sidekick discovers Marsh’s body. As he rides across the countryside with Violet, he looks up and exclaims:

‘What a charming folly!’

This always makes me smile – follies are never good news in Agatha Christie stories.

But by far my favourite bit of the episode is the return of Miss Lemon’s investigative skills. Obviously, I enjoy seeing her peering over card catalogues and registers with her acute eye for the detail of a filing system. But I also like the fact that it is specifically Miss Lemon who spots a slip from the doctor – he refers to ‘Mrs Campion’, rather than ‘Miss Campion’ – and, from the way she questions this, it seems she guesses the reason for the slip before any of the men. For this reason, Poirot entrusts the task of hunting down Miss Campion’s records to her, leaving poor old Hastings kicking his heels on his own in the car park (at least he doesn’t have a strop this time).

And so, ‘The Case of the Missing Will’ might not follow Christie’s original story, but it’s still a great episode. Watkinson does a good job of riffing on Christie’s story to create a script that is convincing as an adaptation (for viewers unfamiliar with the original). There are just enough allusions to reassure fans of Christie’s stories that the writer had read the original as well.

Oh, and we get to see Poirot in his pyjamas again. I’m building up a collection of these pictures, because I have a theory that the detective’s bedtime attire gets distinctly fussier as the series progresses. As you can see, he is not wearing a hairnet or moustache protector in this episode. I doubt anyone apart from me cares.

Right, onto the next episode (and a real favourite of mine) – ‘The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman’




* Academic footnote ahoy! Just to say, I have the version of ‘Strange Jest’ that appears in the eBook edition of the Miss Marple and Mystery: The Complete Short Stories collection, published by HarperCollins in 2011 (2008).

Review: The Animals and Children Took to the Streets (1927)

Thursday 7th February 2019
HOME, Manchester

This week, I was at the press night of The Animals and Children Took to the Streets at HOME Manchester for North Manchester FM. I played a (slightly) shorter version of this review on Hannah’s Bookshelf on Saturday, but here’s the (slightly) longer version of my review…

The Animals and Children Took to the Streets is a theatre show by 1927, which is on at HOME from the 6th-16th February 2019. I call this a ‘theatre show’, rather than a play, because The Animals and Children Took to the Streets is an innovative – experimental, really – performance that makes interesting use of the theatre stage. Written and directed by Suzanne Andrade, and combining music, animation and idiosyncratic performance, the show tells the story of the Bayou Mansions, a cockroach-infested tenement block in the disavowed outskirts of an unnamed big city. The show opens with a twinkling skyline and a voiceover narration introduces us to the city… and then taking us to Bayou Mansions.

In the Bayou, on Red Herring Street, the people are forgotten and downtrodden – and the children have taken to the streets in roaming gangs of disenfranchised criminality. Well-intentioned, missionary-esque Agnes Eaves has read about the problem with the Bayou’s children, and she arrives with her daughter to redeem the feral kids through wholesome PVA glue-based art projects. The Bayou’s forlorn caretaker observes the unfolding carnage and provides a deadpan, melancholy commentary. The children of Red Herring Street – led by wannabe Marxist revolutionary Zelda – are out of control. That is, of course, until the city’s Mayor hatches a plan to subdue them.

I was intrigued by the story blurb in the show’s promotional material, but it didn’t really prepare me for the way in which this story would unfold. The show’s set consists of three blank screens on an empty stage, and the cast consists of just three on-stage performers (plus one voice actor). However, both the screens and the performers are transformed into so much more over the course of the energetic and stylized production. Animations by Paul Barritt are projected onto the screens, transforming them into tenements, junk shops, street scenes and bedrooms. These animations are more than simply a project backdrop. They are filmic illustrations, sometimes serving as a background to the performers, but sometimes a performance in themselves.

The show blends animation, music (and musical numbers), a little bit of physical theatre, carefully choreographed acting and well-placed dark humour to create up a story that is captivating and fun.

The overall style here is graphic-novel-Gothic – for all its desolation, dripping pipes, vermin and vandalism, there’s a quirky and entertaining charm to this dynamic animated setting. And it is certainly dynamic – animated sequences run across the screens, and locations shift with rapidity. Holes in the backdrop open and close to become windows and doors, moving us inside and outside at a staggering pace. At one point, a character dumps a bag into a rubbish chute, and we follow its progress down through the building, past rooms full of leaping children and harried adults, before it reaches the ground floor and falls into a junk shop. This junk shop then springs to life, as a door opens and an actor appears. The sense of movement is fantastic, belying the static nature of the three screens on stage. When one character takes an Alice-in-Wonderland-style tumble, you can almost feel her moving through the air – despite the fact her feet haven’t really left the ground.

For me, the real highlight of The Animals and Children Took to the Streets is the performances. Three on-stage actors in stylized white face paint conjure up the motley inhabitants of the Bayou with the aid of costume and props, interacting with the projected sequences so seamlessly as to almost become part of the animation.

Genevieve Dunne switches between the roles of prim idealist Agnes Eaves and adolescent firebrand Zelda, imbuing each role with its own distinct character. Felicity Sparks energetically accompanies the action on the piano, peering out of a window variously in the guise of tenant, predatory lawyer and ice cream seller to sing out a commentary. But it is Rowena Lennon’s versatile performance that really impresses – transforming (almost instantaneously) from Bayou tenant to caretaker to Zelda’s junk shop-proprietor mother, Lennon’s quick changes of costume and location almost defy the senses.

This is a fun show that utilizes highly stylized sets and performances to create an off-beat and evocative world. With its Soviet and Parisian design influences, odd linguistic flourishes and accents, it’s hard to place where the Bayou is meant to be, exactly. This sense of placelessness adds to the graphic novel feel of the piece.

Similarly, the overall message of the piece is never made explicit. And yet, for all its entertaining exuberance, comic-book style and dark comedy, it feels as though it means something. The show was first staged in 2010, and then again in 2011. At this point, some critics read it as a (prescient) commentary on the riots in the UK. Certainly, Zelda’s war cry of ‘We want what you have out there’, and the show’s refrain of ‘Born in the Bayou, die in the Bayou’ seems to hint at some sort of social commentary. But then again, placelessness goes hand-in-hand with timelessness here, and so it’s also possible that this is a parable for many ages.

I’ll say nothing about the show’s ending (no spoilers!), except to say there’s a nice little bit of fourth-wall breaking that lends a comedically Brechtian air to the proceedings. This, coupled with the show’s performing usherettes, is done with a light touch, which avoids undermining what turns out to be a rather thought-provoking finale.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Animals and the Children Took to the Streets, and it’s a definite recommendation from me. The show’s aesthetic is very much to my tastes, and the innovative use of projection, animation, music and physical performance makes for an unusual and compelling tale about the lost souls at the edge of the city.

The Animals and Children Took to the Streets is on at HOME in Manchester until the 16th February, and then the Lyric Hammersmith in London.