The novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne was first published in two volumes in 1759, with seven others following over the next 10 years. This would suggest a work of some depth as well as length. The big 'joke' is that the eponymous hero cant tell the smallest detail of his life story without going off on tangents and amusing flights of fancy. Reverend Productions adaptation of this unwieldy beast is somewhat more concise. It begins with Tristrams birth in fact it actually begins by focusing on his conception and gestation. The narrative device is that our hero is telling his life story to a modern day female psychiatrist, and he tells her that the whole of his life has been affected by the fact his mother asked his father, at the crucial moment in the love/baby making, if he had remembered to wind all the clocks. This is just one of the misfortunes to befall the embryo, and things dont get any better when his nose is crushed by forceps in the delivery! Once born things dont get better for Tristram.The acting here is not bad, and some of the moments quite funny. Theres a strong flavour of Blackadder about the style, which is no bad thing. The four-strong company take on many parts, including the crucial characters of Tristram's father and uncle. In the latter role we have an actor so tall I genuinely thought he was on stilts the first time he appeared. Between them they unfold the tale as Tristram tries retrospectively to find out why he was mentally scarred by events in his childhood. Eventually its revealed that this scarring is also literal, and involves the lack of a chamber pot, pissing out of the sash window, and a dreadful accident! Ouch!The director and actors make as good a use of this difficult space as is possible. What is not acceptable is that in the publicity the show is advertised as being an hour and ten minutes. This is obviously not enough to deal with a novel of such length. As an audience, however, we were astonished when the actors took their curtain call after a mere forty minutes, not just because we were expecting longer, but because the piece reached no climax or conclusion. At ten pounds a ticket this is very poor value for a non-professional production in what is basically a room with black drapes and a few chairs in it, and if youre on a budget you can get far longer and better for your hard-earned pennies.
