FAIR. To 3 September.

London

FAIR
by Joy Wilkinson

Finborough Theatre To 3 September 2005
Tue-Sat 3.30pm Sun 3.30pm
Runs 1hr 25min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 3 September

Exploring a tricky question with verve,In this play, Joy Wilkinson confronts one of the dilemmas of a modern liberal society: what happens to free speech when it comes to people shouting at the edges. Should someone on the extreme, openly racist Right be listened to? Can they become a liberal-minded person's friend? To live up to her own title in this intriguing, fast-paced play, Wilkinson's racist, Railton, isn't a knuckle-headed fascist thug but a young man with a grievance and genuine feelings.

He comes close to punching the pregnant woman he claims to love in the stomach but pulls back. And she's been provoking him, taunting him that the father of the baby he's just offered to help bring up is Asian. Throughout, it's liberal Melanie whose word can't be relied on. She promises to meet Railton whatever she learns about him then refuses when she realises his affiliation. She's the one who does most name-calling.

Meanwhile Railton's stalked by the figure of his dead fair-ride owning father George, killed and his property trashed by an ethnic gang. Melanie meets Railton's pained outcries with commonplace insults.

Of course, Wilkinson isn't writing an apologia for racism or the extreme Right. But for the first time I can recall since David Edgar's Destiny, a good quarter of a century ago, she's taking it head-on and showing genuine grievances can lie behind attraction to racism. This play has little of Edgar's patient exploration of wider political processes, for it's a closer-focus piece. Its method, as the terse title suggests, is punchy. And personal, exploring the inability of people on either side of the political divide to articulate feelings.

Helen Eastman's production keeps up a whirling pace, suited for the subject matter, with its fairground rides, the shadowy figure of George clutching on to the ride Melanie and Railton enjoy together before she realises who he is, which brings real turbulence into the relationship. Matthew Wilson and Rebecca Evans play fair with their characters' views and complementary limitations while Jonathan Jaynes is a suitably sinister presence provoking his son's mind from the sidelines.

Railton: Matthew Wilson
Melanie: Rebecca Everett
George: Jonathan Jaynes

Director: Helen Eastman
Designer: James Cotterill
Lighting: Neill Brinkworth
Sound: Fergus Mount
Assistant director: Dan Ayling

2005-09-11 12:34:15