This premiere from Greedy Pig Theatre (no pigs were harmed in the piece), is certainly not what you could call a conventional pot-boiler.
It opens on a set strewn with the paraphernalia of a scruffy not-well-maintained apartment, but also lots of flashing lights, disembodied voices and snatches of music, and a weird backdrop of various surreal images.
Through this miasma gradually unfolds the basic concept of the piece: that some sort of future hi-tech has enabled ‘mind transfer’ so that a person can ‘hide’ inside someone else’s body. Best not to think about the science behind this. This is fiction. What it leads to is that Connor, a young apparently innocent and withdrawn occupant of the flat, has been ‘occupied’ by a criminal on the run who calls himself Fish – hence the title of the piece. Are you with it so far?
A complex plot now unfolds, which also involves Connor’s brother, Ryan and his partner Ruby, and much later another character, Alice, whose connection with Connor turns out to be more macabre than expected. Going into fine detail of the plot would take far too long.
The show is best described as a surreal sci-fi horror tragi-comedy whodunnit: a sort of Jekyll and Hyde meets Waiting for Godot and Agatha Christie – and you need to keep your wits about you to follow its twists and turns.
What is striking in this is the performances, which hold the plot together; in particular that of Patrick James Withey as Connor/Fish.
In a terrific display of acting skill, he leaps between the sinister, but ebulliently loud, roguish, unpredictable and murderous Fish, and the meek and frightened Connor, at will; the two characters in the same body often arguing with each other.
Fish is also, surprisingly, very funny at times. Why he does an impression of Britney Spears, for instance, we don’t know, but he is hilarious and disturbing at the same time. While, of course, the wimpish Connor intermittently looks on. An extraordinary feat of acting.
Both Connor and Fish change their characters gradually, after more pseudo-scientific interventions in the form of pills, and the plot winds up with surprising, though previously hinted at, revelations, and everyone turns out pretty much not to be what they seem, with a final excellent gag at the denouement.
This is a rather long review; but it is of a show, which for all its exuberant vitality, is itself a tad over-long at two hours plus interval.
A little pruning and tightening might make it a bit less sprawling and more effective. There is a tendency also at times to drift towards melodrama, which weakens it slightly.
Nevertheless, an innovative and interesting piece from a company with theatrical daring.
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Reviewer: John Christopher Wood | Star rating: ***
The Fish Cage was presented by Greedy Pig Theatre Company at the Rondo Theatre in Bath.
