Don’t go down to the woods today. Or the far wilds of Turnham Green. There’s a clown and a doll and some teddy bears on the loose and you really don’t want to run into them. They’ll try to tie you up in a very silly conversation about the meaning of truth and repeatedly bludgeon you with their pointless discourse, leaving you bruised and thoroughly bored.
No Picnic is the story of two teddy bears who decided to attend an autoerotic asphyxiation workshop. The class went a little wrong, the teacher died while demonstrating the technique and the bears are, ironically, now scared they’ll be hanged for murder. They’re no good at lying – teddy bears aren’t you know – so they go see a doll who teaches them how to spin facts into fabrications. With the power of lies they are able to outwit the sadistic clown who is pursing them and live happily ever after.
Some of you will have lost interest at ‘teddy bears’ and others will have hurriedly stopped reading at the mention of clowns. But when I walked into the Tabard Theatre I was intrigued. I would love to watch an intelligent play that elegantly juxtaposed innocent emblems of childhood with a dark and twisted morality.
That’s probably just what Greg Freeman’s script was attempting, but like the asphyxiation workshop, the attempt turned into a disaster. The play kept trying to offer profound insights into big questions: when it is acceptable to lie, how dangerous is it to deceive ourselves and how much honesty can a society afford? But every answer was frustratingly simplistic and so many issues were piled into the play that the whole thing collapsed into tedious incoherence.
Considering the uneven text they had to work with, Dan Frost and James Sygrove gave reasonable performances as the troubled teddy bears. They delivered their lines in the cheerful RP of upper-class fighter pilots, which worked rather charmingly with the surreal sight of two men dressed in vast, patchwork bear costumes. Halfway through they removed their furry headpieces, an action that was presumably meant to symbolise their newfound emotional honesty, but which actually gave the impression that the director (Ken McClymont) wasn’t brave enough to have his actors hidden behind masks for an entire performance.
The dishonest doll was the most ill conceived character in the play, continually reciting clichéd monologues about her fear of ageing and her obsession with beauty products. She was dressed like a Tim Burton character and felt like a poor imitation of Helena Bonham Carter’s petulant Red Queen. But instead of being disturbingly childish, Helen Russell Clark seemed more like an actual child, horribly overacting and constantly pulling ridiculous faces.
Rhys King was the only actor who managed to salvage a compelling performance from the mess of the play. His sadomasochistic clown was genuinely menacing and Vana Giannoula enhanced the effect by designing a wonderful costume and a terrifyingly painted face. Any unsuspecting audience member with a clown phobia will have been scared witless. The rest of us were thankful that there was character worth watching.
