CurtainUp
CurtainUp

The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features, Annotated Listings
www.curtainup.com


HOME PAGE

SITE GUIDE

SEARCH

REVIEWS

REVIEW ARCHIVES

ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP

FEATURES

NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings


LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway

NYC Restaurants

BOOKS and CDs

OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
DC
Connecticut
Philadelphia
Elsewhere

QUOTES

TKTS

PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS

LETTERS TO EDITOR

FILM

LINKS

MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
Writing for Us
A CurtainUp London London Review
Game


"If this was Holland we could do euthanasia." — John
Game
Jodie McNee as Carly and Mike Noble as Ashley (Photo: Keith Pattison)
Mike Bartlett is the playwright to watch with last year's brilliant future history play in verse, Charles III cornering best play nominations and wins. At Rupert Goold's Almeida, an exciting alternative to the National Theatre, along with director Sacha Wares, Bartlett envisages where the public's taste for reality will take us.

This satire is based on the potential extremes of humiliation on reality television as entertainment but combining this as theatre, in so far as the paying public watch the action live from "hides" as if they were bird watchers, or more appropriately, big game hunters in Africa. Game presents a cross between the style of television's Big Brother and a snuff movie.

The theatre has been reconfigured into four discreet hides where around 30 people sit on benches with cushions covered in camouflage fabric, watching the action and listening through headphones. We meet the paying public, either on screens or in the individual hide, when new employee and de-mobbed soldier David (Kevin Harvey) hands them a rifle and explains the game. Each shot costs £500 and they have to pay again, if they miss and want another shot.

Running in parallel with the introduction of the paying guests, we meet the human prey. Liverpudlian homeless couple, Ashley (Mike Noble) and Carly (Jodie McNee) are induced into this game by the offer of a luxury home and a comfortable life style, apart from the catch, when they are shot, maybe with a tranquilizer dart which knocks them out completely. They sacrifice privacy in order to live in this well equipped glass walled house on two levels. The couple pay the intimacy price. A girls' night out gets a group reduced rate for this sick entertainment and the affluent audience book up months ahead.

Seven years on, Ashley and Carly are joined by their son Liam (Oscar Bennett/Jonah Miller/Ben Roberts) now a new target for those who fancy themselves as child killers. Being the human target proves too much for Liam and the whole family wants to leave. Liam refuses to come out of a cardboard box and a troupe of camouflage dressed soldiers surround the house for the end game.

Of course we the audience are another type of voyeur and the brilliant Bartlett's one hour play is uncomfortable to watch but raises debatable ethical issues and holds a sharply defined mirror up to the public's seemingly endless taste for the cruel.

Subscribe to our FREE email updates with a note from editor Elyse Sommer about additions to the website -- with main page hot links to the latest features posted at our numerous locations. To subscribe, E-mail: esommer@curtainup.comesommer@curtainup.com
put SUBSCRIBE CURTAINUP EMAIL UPDATE in the subject line and your full name and email address in the body of the message -- if you can spare a minute, tell us how you came to Curtain Up and from what part of the country.
Game
Written by Mike Bartlett
Directed by Sacha Wares

Starring: Daniel Cerqueira, Kevin Harvey, Jodie McNee, Mike Noble
With: Georgina Beedle, Clare Burt, Laurence Grant, Chloe Hesar, Ben Righton, Richard Sumitro, Susan Wokoma.
Set Designer: Miriam Buether
Costume Designer: Alex Lowde
Lighting: Jack Knowles
Video Design: Leo Warner for 59 Productions
Sound: Gareth Fry
Movement Director: Leon Baugh
Running time: One hour with no interval
Box Office 020 7359 4404
Booking to 4th April 2015
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 3rd March 2015 performance at the Almeida, Upper Street, Islington, London N1 1TA (Tube: The Angel)
REVIEW FEEDBACK
Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
  • I agree with the review of Game
  • I disagree with the review of Game
  • The review made me eager to see Game
Click on the address link E-mail: esommer@curtainup.com
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V):

Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email . . . also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review.

London Theatre Walks


Peter Ackroyd's  History of London: The Biography



London Sketchbook



tales from shakespeare
Retold by Tina Packer of Shakespeare & Co.
Click image to buy.
Our Review


©Copyright 2015, Elyse Sommer.
Information from this site may not be reproduced in print or online without specific permission from esommer@curtainup.com