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A CurtainUp London London Review
Clarion


"The Methodists, Mary Whitehouse, Malcolm Muggeridge. The last of the moral vertebrates. They warned us. Presley opened the floodgates in Memphis. We should have jammed the broadcasts, smashed up the records, torpedoed Radio Caroline. Instead we let the music in and got what? Sixty years of culturally sanctioned, underaged rutting and the fucking polytechnics." — Morris
Clarion
Greg Hicks as Morris and Peter Bourke as Clive Pumfrey in management led prayers (Photo: Simon Annand)
Former journalist Mark Jagasia's play Clarion has the laughs coming thick and fast as he satirises the behind the scenes of a tabloid newspaper. The editor Morris Honeyspoon played by Greg Hicks, whose unique voice has its own booming reverb, is a monster. He is also ridiculous with his carrying around a full Roman Centurion's helmet; apparently he spends his weekends in full Roman dress, dressed as that famous Italian immigrant Julius Caesar. The newspaper he runs, he claims is issue led. This means knocking stories about immigrants headlining the front page at least 300 times a year. Headlines like, "Horror as Immigrants Barbecue Llama at Petting Zoo."

The play opens with seasoned hack and respected former war correspondent Verity Stokes (a wonderful world weary performance by Clare Higgins) defending the paper on a radio programme. Pretending that she thinks she is off air, she calls her antagonist, a stand up comedian, a shit.

As the journalists assemble for the morning news conference, where Morris uses an old fashioned car horn to guillotine any ideas which don't interest him, we meet a young reporter Joshua Moon (Ryan Wichert) and Pritti (Laura Smithers) who is on work experience at the newspaper.

Mark Jagasia doesn't miss a trick when it comes to writing a good joke. Verity talks to the ill-educated Pritti about the places she reported from, Port Stanley, Soweto, Kandahar, Sarajevo, Vukuvar, Kinshasa, Liberia and Rwanda, war zones all, and Pritti says in Essex tones, "Right but I don't want to work on the travel desk."

The plot twists and turns in ways I couldn't predict with a deep seam of dark comedy at its centre. The play is well cast with stand out performances from Clare Higgins as the survivor Verity and Greg Hicks as the unhinged editor. There is a scene from the astrologer who had predicted Armageddon in each of the solar horoscopes which has upset the wife of the proprietor and owner of the Clarion.

Mark Jagasia's word driven humour is superb and Mehmet Ergen's direction exemplary. It is so good to be able to laugh in the theatre and at the same time be thinking about real issues which dominate the gutter press and how we got to this state of affairs. Don't miss this thoroughly good evening of scathing comedy!
Clarion
Written by Mark Jagasia
Directed by Mehmet Ergen

Starring: Clare Higgins, Greg Hicks
With: Jim Bywater, Ryan Wichert, Laura Smithers, Peter Bourke, John Atterbury
Designer: Anthony Lamble
Lighting: David Howe
Sound/Music Designer: Neil McKeown
Running time: Two hours 20 minutes with an interval
Box Office 020 7503 1646
Booking to 16th May 2015
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 22nd April 2015 performance at the Arcola, 24 Ashwin Street, London E8 3DL (Overground: Dalston Junction, or Dalston Kingsland)
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