Minder, One Foot In The Grave, Coronation Street, Eyes Wide Shut - what do all have in common? The writing, directing and production team for Circus, now showing at the Tobacco Factory, is the answer. From such a prestigious team (in case you're wondering, the author of this piece wrote the first two, the director was in the third, and the fourth is one of the works by the writer whose work inspired it. We were expecting great things from Bristolian theatre's latest new offering.

The plot, however, didn't really deliver. Here is how it works: People sleep with other people, it's a fact of life and it's perfectly natural. Sometimes these people are different sexes, sometimes not. Circus shows how two people have sex with each other, one goes off and sleeps with another, who sleeps with someone else, and so on until we get back to one of the original two. The play starts at a railway station where a Royal Marine is seduced by a rent-boy, and then leaves, bent on enjoying his leave. It's an idea that potentially could be quite an interesting one with some deep psychological meaning and, of course, a bit of sex thrown in for good measure. But the team behind this one seem to have rather missed out the first one. The play is plain narrative, the characters are either too greedy for us to care about them, or too fleetingly glimpsed for us to sympathise with them.

They also seem to have forgotten that theatre should flow, that long breaks between scenes in particular leave the audience shuffling in their seats and wondering how much longer it will be before the lights come up. There were a lot of tables and chairs, and whilst all the ones on stage during a scene were used, they could surely have been left out in favour of a more slick transition between scenes. The costumes were simple enough, everyday clothes that people in such positions as the characters would wear, which helped to make the whole thing at least a little more believable.

What didn't help was the fact that the script, and at times the cast, were a little predictable and safe. Lines were delivered and, in the gap before the next actor spoke, we could tell what his line would be. We could tell it would be an attempt at humour. And, when it came, it wasn't as funny as it should have been as a result. The cast were pretty mixed in performance terms. Whilst Paul Mohan as the walrus (a nickname, to save you asking), John Tefler as the icon, and Douglas Fielding as the dresser were all merely good, and Sam Laydon was giving a spirited performance as the rent-boy in his first professional production, there were others who were less impressive.

Dan Winter in particular displayed a depth of emotion in speech at intimate moments that would have appeared uninspired to a brick, whilst the rest of the cast varied between not so-so and not so so-so. Dennis Mann, the musician, was incredibly good, which at any rate gave us something to listen to whilst the stage hands were moving and entire front room onto the stage.

Overall, then, I left this performance feeling neither moved, nor excited. I did not believe many of the situations the writers asked me to, and, despite the uproarius laughter of other members of the audience at lines which didn't seem to me to be even courting humour, I wasn't very entertained. There were funny moments, but none that merited rolling in the aisles, and often the dialogue, as has already been suggested, was more than a little predictable. The Tobacco Factory never put on a bad production really, which is why I'm all the more amazed at this. Give it a miss, and let's hope normal service resumes soon.

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Story

Set

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Cast

Overall

1 1/2 out of 5

Tickets £10

Performance time: 7:30pm

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0117 902 0344

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