Theatre review: Cock and Bull Story, Brunton Theatre

Published on Monday 14 September 2009 09:52

Cock and Bull Story ***** Brunton Theatre

REGULAR readers will know Liam Rudden as the mild-mannered Arts and Entertainment Editor for the Evening News. By night, however, his fiendish alter ego takes over and he becomes something completely different – a director.

Best known for writing and directing Brunton Theatre's annual pantomime and producing the long running festival favourite A Virgin's Guide to Rocky Horror, Rudden has had a long-running association with many Arts and Theatre groups.

His current project is the staging of controversial 1993 play Cock and Bull Story, written by Richard Crowe and Richard Zajdlic (Clocking Off, East Enders, This Life), using two young up-and-coming Edinburgh actors. A meaty, challenging piece for any director to get his teeth into, the script was developed by the playwrights through a series of improvisations based on two characters grappling with their sexual identity using boxing as a metaphor. While billed as a 'Gay Play', the story is more of an exploration of the taboos of sexuality, violence and male bonding in working class society than a tale specifically dedicated to the trials of gender orientation.

The action revolves around boxer Rupert Travis's final fight before hitting the big time. All he needs to do is psych out his rival in 'the clinch' to seal the deal. Best mate Jacko Foster, however, has a few reservations about quite what goes on in 'the clinch' and how that might affect their relationship.

First staged by Rudden in the Leith festival last June, the tense two-hander has graduated to the Brunton Theatre this week with all the swaggering confidence of a Ned showing off his brand new switchblade down the pub.

Adapted to reflect the Leith vernacular, there's an exciting authenticity and energy to Stuart Ryan and David Elliot's portrayal of working class boys at odds with their sexuality that gives a raw edge to the production. Ryan's Travis is imbued with an earnest naivety that rubs nicely against Elliot's loutish, street savvy Foster.

The first act is filled with cheeky, bombastic banter passing quickly between the two. The audience laughing at the familiar taunts and stories the lads share as they talk about a future free of street fights and filled with booze, birds and success. The second act, however, brings a creeping tension as suddenly the audience become the forth wall, listening in to shared secrets and a new uncertainty about the boys' future.

The simplicity of the play's staging, a boxer's changing room under a bright white spot with no extraneous sound, while successfully aiding the suffocating intensity of the drama, distracts the viewer from the violence in the second act.

A lack of sound effects and blood during the fight adds a slight stagey-ness that detracted from the event's impact. Yet a lack of visceral realism is a small price to pay for the spine-tingling electricity generated. There's a chance the show may start touring next year in its original, English form. So catch it now while it speaks to the audience in a familiar tongue.