REVIEW: Body Double
Body Double, The Bear Pit Theatre, Stratford, runs until Saturday, 9th April
IN acting parlance, a ‘body double’ is an actor who substitutes for a leading performer, especially in distance shots or scenes not involving the face.
The use of a body double makes for good theatrical trickery when, say, an actor is doing a quick change, or putting on a farce, or a thriller to fool the audience on the comings and goings of the characters.
Here, local playwright and professional actor, Mark Carey, from Ilmington, has riffed upon the notion of a body double, using it as the central motif for this hugely enjoyable thriller, which is making its debut at The Bear Pit Theatre.
It is a play within a play. At the opening scene we see two aging actors, fading star Simon Shaw (Graham Tyrer) and would-be alcoholic Joanna McArthur (Pamela Hickson), a husband and wife who despise one another, being given a run through of the new low-rent crime thriller in which they are to star, also called Body Double, by wimpy liberal writer/director Martin Barnes (Christopher Harvey), in front of old school producer Barry Liston (David Derrington), and practical young stage manager Emma Tomlinson (Natalie Danks-Smith).
The play has a lovely easy-watching veneer — with echoes of Coward, Ayckbourn, or even Agatha Christie (the body count rises!). The set is charmingly designed too, and cleverly is under construction but moves towards completion as the play evolves.
But there’s also plenty of postmodern irony to give the play depth. For example, the characters muse on what other plays within plays have been successful (answer: hardly any, just The Dresser and Noises Off) and discuss how cliché having the police arrive as a denouement is, before employing this device itself in a highly comedic way.
There are laughs aplenty — the script is very jokey and clever — and the audience guffaws gather as the absurdities of the plot expand.
An attempt to convey the plot of Body Double (both the play and the play-within-the-play) would be to leak plot spoilers and leave all brains thoroughly befuddled.
But understanding playwright Mark’s own journey is very enlightening, he told Herald arts last month: “In 1986 I understudied Colin Baker (Doctor Who) in a West End play called Corpse and was his body double. At one point during the run, I had an idea. Colin Baker is a really nice man and we got on well, but what if I killed him? What if, instead of shooting him in the play with a blank I used a real bullet? Could I then take over in the leading role? Could I even be TV’s most famous Time Lord? Something like that could lead to bigger things — Hamlet at the RSC!”
This (imagined) conniving informs the plot of Body Double, in which Mark manages to strike that perfect thriller-mystery formula: it’s convoluted enough to be interesting but not too obscure to follow, and just when you think you understand what’s going on, a new twist catches you by surprise. The acting is spot on.
The harder task goes to Graham Tyrer, who doubles up on characters (without giving too much away), his ability with an accent, and his gloriously sonorous voice, really bought believability to this remarkably fine production.
Go and see it, and accept no substitutes!
Click here for tickets.
REVIEW BY GILL SUTHERLAND