Hectoring, not hard-hitting

Maxie Szalwinska|Metro10 April 2012

This new show by Cardboard Citizens, the homeless people's professional theatre company, is an exercise in disconcerting the audience.

A suburban couple, Rob and Hattie, are preparing a Sunday roast for their friends when in pops Alex, the next-door neighbour with whom Hattie is having an affair. So far, so conventional.

But, having yuckily declared his love for Hattie ('I feel I'm drowning in your face'), the actor playing Alex seems to have a nervous collapse, saying he can't go on and walking off the set.

Visible's target is complacency. The evening is about the elephant in the room and the people we try to forget: the homeless, the dispossessed and illegal immigrants.

Yet while the show taps veins of discomfort, too often its uneasiness is caused by Adrian Jackson's production. It feels thrown together: hectoring rather than hard-hitting; shambolic where it should be theatrically playful.

Like Alex, the script suffers from something of a breakdown as it attempts to reconcile a gameshow format featuring painful audience participation and actors in giant fluffy animal costumes, with sitcom style shenanigans involving people being bundled into cupboards and pathetic efforts to hide a murdered cat.

There are a few sharp performances. Gus Brown is convincingly vile playing a gameshow host as slimy as a blocked drain. But sadly, Sarah Woods's play just gives us the same point over and over.

Until May 6, Soho Theatre And Writers Centre, 21 Dean Street W1, Mon to Sat 7.30pm, Sat mats 3pm, £15 to £20, £12.50 to £15 concs, mats £7.50. Tel: 0870 429 6883. www.sohotheatre.com Tube: Tottenham Court Road/ Piccadilly Circus

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