The
Electric Hills
By Michael McLean
Louis
Emmerick, Dave Fishley, Claire Keelan, Azuka Oforka
Director: Nick Bagnall
Production Manager: Emma Wright
Liverpool
Everyman Theatre
Wednesday March 14th, 2007
 |
THEATRE REVIEWS
by
Chris High
New writing should be encouraged and nurtured as the precious commodity
it is. With The Electric Hills being his first
play, Michael McLean should be nurtured more than most.
Kelisha’s dad was Top of the Pops. The Electric Hills.
One hit wonder. 80s floor filler. Now Ricky’ over the hill, sleeping
all day and running dead discos at night.
But when his girls just want to have careers and a former band member
crashes in, the past reveals a tainted love and what happens when the
Rock and Roll Dreams don’t come through.
Michael
McLean is a graduate of the Everyman and Playhouse
Young Writers Programme and on this evidence the scheme has much to
applaud it. The writing is tight without ever being inflexible, whilst
the performances – and especially those of Louis Emmerick (Ricky)
and Azuka Oforka (Kelisha) – are superb.
Emmerick is so at home in the living room / pub / party setting, it is possible to forget that the audience are sitting in a theatre and his comic timing is so natural its almost as though he’s not working from a script at all.
Oforka,
meanwhile, is the epitome of teenage angst and ambition without any
of the nastiness that can so often overshadow such roles. Kelisha is,
instead, a well- rounded girl who has been let down by both her parents
without ever being at fault.
Dave Fisher is disturbingly addled as the drug- affected prodigal band-mate, Little Richard, who bumbles back into Ricky’s life to cause emotional waves of Titanic-sinking proportions, whilst Claire Keelan as Ricky’s partner, Joanne, comes across as somehow self-centred without even trying to be.
This
is an accomplished and comfortable debut from a playwright from whom
we are destined to hear more should he continue in the manner he has
set out and The Electric Hills is as professional
a production as anyone has a right to expect.
8/10.
The
Electric Hills is playing at The Liverpool Everyman Theatre,
Hope Street, Liverpool from March 9th to March 31st.
If so - please feel free to leave your FEEDBACK
break the rules as I see fit.” - Chris High 2003.