Visiting the theatre to watch a piece advertised as 'the unstageable play', youre about to see either a well-thought-out staging of a lost classic or an arrogant ensemble performing for personal prestige alone. Fortunately, Steel Theatre's production of A Resounding Tinkle is the former.1950s absurdism at its lip-bitingly self-aware finest, the play takes great pleasure in exposing the nuances of theatrical technique. In a memorable sequence the middle-class Bro and Middie Paradock fellate their intellects by dismantling comic technique, only to have the audience in hysterics later in their execution of the very sequence just evaluated and explained. Whereas Osborne rejected pre-1950s British theatre, N. F. Simpson chooses instead to deconstruct it before our eyes, taking great pleasure in laying metaphor bare for our bemused enjoyment. The juxtaposition of the play's main characters between those with pretensions of grandeur and the hedonistic northerners is a prime example.The main roles are given great body by some excellent performances; but the other characters thrown carelessly into the play provide the most food for thought. Ben Higgins' writer is simply brilliant: a wonderfully open and warm performance giving the audience much needed respite from the chaos that he supposedly conceived. If the play is unstageable it was not evident here. Kim Moakes has done an inspired job, moving the performance around the stage and keeping the dangerously numerous entrances fresh. I would have preferred the set to compliment the anarchy of both script and performance, but when the final scene eases into its devastating parody of theatre critics (led by an engrossing and absorbing Alex Morgan) its difficult to say anything the play doesn't acknowledge itself. If you love British theatre, enjoy having it playfully broken down before you. If you hate it, enjoy its rejection!
