Stovepipe

I am a real fan of promenade theatre. unless the walking about bit of the play is heinously cringeworthy and pointless, in which case i LOATHE it and think it's pretentious shit. Last year's super high was the improbably named You Me Bum Bum Train- a ghost train cum theatre of nightmares housed in a warehouse on Curtain Road, E1 where you wandered though various bad dream scenarios including crawling though a tunnel that spat you out in the middle of a boxing ring where you were expected to fight, a dentist's chair, a catwalk show (at this point i was in a wheelchair and sporting a luminous yellow gum shield), a bobsleigh race and a press conference with a politician speaking Swahili (where i was supposed to be the translator). completely bizarre and utterly wonderful. This year's high might very well prove to be Stovepipe, a play set in the subterranean, echoey, creepy space beneath the West 12 shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush. It's about an ex-military private contractor, Alan, who, along with two friends, is hired by a corporation involved with the construction exhibition Project Rebuild Iraq. Supposedly paid enough to warrant no health or security clauses in their contract, the three men launch themselves into Iraq's turbulent social landscape hoping to get in and get out unscathed. Obviously it doesn't quite work out like that, and Alan (subsequently hired as a private security guard) sets out on a cross middle eastern quest to find his AWOL friend following the tortuous death of the other. As the audience you're initially welcomed into the space as if a guest at the conference, so, vacuous chat, perma-smiles and bullshit presentations are the order of the day - the language of Project Rebuild Iraq that perfectly sets the scene for the underlying foundation of the play. from then on you are herded about from Jordanian hotel room to corporate office, rowdy bar, war zone and even a welsh church, always ricocheting between the conversations of Russian prostitutes, Iraqi exiles, jumped up journalists, tough-as-shit corporation organisers and soldiers (or rather ex soldiers on the edge of sanity). sometimes you'll be guided to the next location by cool, inanely confident PRB conference 'officials' sometimes it'll be pitch black with only the lights on soldiers' helmets as a guide across the danger zone you're being shouted at to negotiate. at times terrifying, at others funny, and often perplexing with time jumps that throw you off balance and constantly make you reinterpret what you've just seen in a new way. i thought it was brilliant. it used every inch of the unconventional space with genuine innovation, seamlessly guided you from scene to scene without ever losing anyone or making you confused, the pace was perfectly pitched and the subject matter for thought. basically it was perfect theatre. then i went and had an extraordinary Polish meal down the road and drank vodka shots and really wasn't myself at all the next day. oh well, you win some you lose some.