Blue/Orange: Tobacco Factory

Thursday 18th September 2008

This is a Crackerjack review of Blue/Orange. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.

Crackerjack rating: 8 / 10.

A trio of testosterone-powered protagonists. Humourless, earnest Doctor Bruce who is convinced mental health patient Chris is a suicidal danger to society, and smooth consultant Robert, who wants to free up a bed by discharging Chris early.

Essentially, to quote Robert, Joe Penhall’s blistering argument of a drama “comes down to semantics”. It’s how the two white medics interpret vulnerable black fantasist Chris’s language and how he sees the world. Chris in turn fails to understand their banter, jokes and the post-colonial prejudices of the noughties.

With just a water cooler for company, and some chairs, Danielle Bassett’s set looked like any office meeting room.  Funny, witty and always to the point, director Sam Berger unleashed the cast and let them slug it out to the compulsive, gurgling, bubbling end. 

Christopher Tester as Bruce was suitably unspeakable, Colin Dunkley as Chris was unsettlingly convincing as the sectioned patient, and Chris Bianchi enjoyed himself as the suave careerist Robert who had all the best lines and represented all everything that’s wrong in the NHS.

Harry Mottram

This is a Crackerjack review of Blue/Orange. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.