Seven performers stand statue-like awaiting the start of the show. The audience sits just as rigidly waiting for something to happen. The uncomfortable silence created during these preceding minutes, lingers long after the production actually starts as it attempts to link the concepts of cocaine manufacture and psychological identity.
The show follows the “real-life” story of Mark Kennedy, an undercover cop who adopted the alias Mark Stone to infiltrate a group of subversive environmentalists. Unfortunately the only thing real about the Royal Holloway Drama Society’s attempt at re-telling this story is the news footage and links left to summarise the show. The cast is committed, physically throwing themselves on the sword so to speak, but even here many of the physical feats and gestures are not only out of time but irrelevant, superfluous to the biographical storytelling, and a vain attempt to add another dimension to this one-dimensional show. The emotional journey of the characters is not clear and the actors end in the same mood they began.
Undercovered claims to raise questions of identity and misrepresentation, but really, like Mark Kennedy himself, it is pretending to be something it’s not. The show skims the surface, providing no psychological insight into the mind and motives of the man. Perhaps, for this story, one should stick to the BBC.