HAVE you ever been in a pub? Have you watched the people in there? Did they make you laugh?
Two, by Jim Cartwright, will allow you to do just that.
His drama, set in a pub, brings in nume-rous characters, from a young woman to an elderly one, to a chap who likes chatting up the girls. What makes it special is that they are played by just two actors.
At the centre is a miserable publican and his wife, argu-ing. But into the pub come the girl given a hard time by her man, the old man, the woman who loves “big men” (although with a weakling who cannot get a drink at the bar) and the chap who gives his woman a bad time.
Cartwright gets plenty of fun out of these characters while evoking a touch of sadness.
It is a drama which requires special per-formances and they get them from Paul-ine Daniels as all the women, and Neil Caple as the blokes. It is amazing how they move from person to person, Daniels sometimes a young woman looking for “action”, then to an elderly depressed woman.
Caple switches from elderly chap in a cap to the nasty bloke who suspects his partner of all sorts of naughtiness. Caple also directs the play (I am not sure how) which moves along at swift pace.
Cartwright’s drama gives misery as well as humour (this is, after all, part of the Liverpool Comedy Festival).
But it is a production which makes you realise just what great actors Pauline Daniels and fellow Liverpudlian Neil Caple are.
It’s a wonderful play and is given a special performance, with great lighting and sound from LIPA student Chris Whitehead. The venue is new for theatre-goers but well worth searching out.
