“The Perplexing Puzzle of the Pedigree Pet and the Policeman”

The latest play-reading in the On The Edge season at Chapter was a rare foray into comedy – Terry Victor’s “The Perplexing Puzzle of the Pedigree Pet and the Policeman”, first produced in 1981, in which supercilious detective Shirley Holmes and her hapless assistant Joan Watson investigate a particularly icky murder. The author also directed, cleverly making a comic virtue of the script-in-hand aesthetic, and the performers Rebecca Knowles (Holmes), Rhian Cheyne (Watson), Liz Gardner (the older Watson, narrator and MC), Natalie Paisey (damsel in distress) and Aled Herbert (stagehand and chief suspect) were obviously enjoying themselves. The play would certainly have benefited from having some of the references updated (the SPG, Sham ’69, etc), and the integration between the old-school and modern elements of the narrative (e.g. the urban riot) seemed a little awkward to me. On the whole, though, jolly fun.

Desire Lines

Ian Rowlands’ new play “Desire Lines”, a Sherman Cymru production at Chapter, Cardiff (whose 40th anniversary party was in full swing on the night I attended) is structured with deceptive simplicity – a man in late middle age muses on his life whilst on a long rail/bus journey through a metaphorical Wales (towns with such names as Chavton, Dullage, and Bluerinse Bay; there is a helpful glossary in the programme/playtext), his reflections impinged upon by those of his fellow travellers. Add Rowland’s poetically profane way with dialogue (something of a speciality here in South Wales), Irina Brown’s fluent direction, clever stage and sound design - occasionally illuminated rail-tracks, frequently re-arranged seating, angelic singing, a video backdrop reflecting the onstage drama (a blurred moving landscape, hazy wallpaper, a sunset) - and vivid performances, and what we get is something almost magical. Ifan Huw Dafydd is engagingly vibrant as the Man, with Sue Roderick as his wife, a wordless, nebulous presence until the play’s climax, and Huw Garmon, Alys Thomas and Joshua McCord multi-tasking as other characters, some in whom the central character is invested, and others who have dreams, tragedies, insecurities and over-loud mobile phone conversations of their own to deal with. The occasional rants about Welsh-English tensions, although central to the motivations of the central protagonists (and indeed the author), seemed to belong to a different play, however, tending to disrupt the elegiac tone and yank me out of the drama (but maybe that’s just my Englishness getting in the way); and some of the non-Welsh accents need a little work. For the most part, however, it’s an utterly entrancing journey.

Source Code

Source Code, like its predecessor, Duncan Jones’ debut feature, the excellent Moon, centres upon a sensitive male protagonist in existential science-fiction crisis. The new film, however, is on a far bigger scale, and none the worse for that. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a pilot who is repeatedly transported into the body of a passenger on a Chicago train which is about to be blown up by a terrorist – he has eight minutes to investigate before being returned to a mysterious military lab. Very Twilight Zone, not to mention Quantum Leap (whose star, Scott Bakula, has a poignant voice-only cameo). Thanks to an ingenious script by Ben Ripley, and excellent supporting performances from Michelle Monaghan as the ridiculously cute love interest, Vera Farmiga as Gyllenhaal’s military contact, and the (occasionally over-acting) Jeffrey Wright as the cynical boffin, it maintains its humanity whilst cleverly sending up the “ticking-clock” Hollywood screenwriting orthodoxy. Towards the end, a legendary film by Dalton Trumbo is called to mind (to say more would constitute a huge spoiler), and while the conclusion maybe adds a little too much confusing SF elaboration, it remains gripping throughout. This is commercial cinema doing what it does best: taking the viewer on a satisfying roller-coaster ride.