Review: Progress Theatre's A Couple Of Poor English Speaking Poles
Barrie Theobald • Published 21 Mar 2010 09:00
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THE two principal actors, Nadine (Izzy Townend) and Blighty (Matt Drury) were already on stage as we took our seats, depicting the drug-fueled state we found them in at the start of the piece when, posing as penniless Poles, they were accused by several minor characters of various petty offences before hijacking the driver (Chris Bertrand), forcing him to drive them to Chippenham.
Thereafter, the transposition of the original tale from Poland to England started to completely fall apart.
For instance, how, after half an hour's fast driving (presumably either down the M4 or the A4) and ending up in a forest, did we suddenly find ourselves back in Reading again at the commencement of Act 2?
Driving home I tried to clear in my mind just exactly what the point of this play was - but failed completely.
In the end, I decided instead to feel sorry for the actors who had undoubtedly spent hours rehearsing what, to me, was a merely a warning by the author against drug abuse, while, at the same time trying to see how many times she could make her characters use the 'F' word in one evening.
Perhaps I should have asked some of the young members of the theatre's youth group, who made up a large percentage of the first night's audience, to explain it to me!
This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 18 Mar 10
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