Rarely less than hilarious and told at a blistering pace, Lads is a triumph of blokeish wit, satire, social observation and visceral direction.
With just four actors and four chairs, this no-frills production brings the audience along for a night out with the lads, as ladies' man Paul, Jimmy the live-at-home actor, Nick the golden-hearted thug, and Rich the would-be family man meet up for an evening on the tiles.
Writer and director James Kermack works miracles with the limited staging, transporting the audience from pre-pub tequila shots and cocaine pick-me-ups, through pubs, clubs, speeding cabs and the pissed up squalor of the South London night bus. All the while, he expertly captures the rhythms and cadences of blokeish night-out banter.
The conversational staples of a lads’ night out are all in attendance: casual misogyny masking pathetic insecurity; competing tales of tawdry sex and conquest and cruelty cloaking affection. Honestly, apart from the fact that football wasn’t mentioned once, it’s like eavesdropping on a Saturday night at your local Lloyds bar.
The cast take on multiple roles, from barmen, bouncers and bosses, to past lays and gossiping girls, as the four friends tell tales of work, love, sex and drama. It's this ingenious and supremely executed narrative device, that takes us from the pub table, to a fight scene – as recounted by hard-man Nick – then seamlessly to the recent audition of Jimmy the actor. It's during these physical depictions of recalled memory, as retold in conversation, that Lads is at its best.
Fantastic lines include Jimmy to a fellow actor: “How do you cry?” Actor: “I.. I…I think of Yoda dying” while the paedophilic Santa had me rolling on the floor: all delivered and performed by a cast of four that never appear to be anything other than old friends out on the lash.
Credit goes to the irrepressible Drummond Bowskill for his incomparable performance as Nick (and others). Bowskill had me in creases with every line, his comic timing and magnetic confidence made me want him on stage at all times. Which, fortunately, in this production, he is.
Despite an unnecessarily mawkish final ten minutes, I can’t remember the last time I laughed with such abandon while watching a play so creatively delivered with skill and balls.
Photo credit: AlbertTheBollix
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