Review: 'A Slap In The Face

By James Metcalf

Written and directed by student Toby King, A Slap in the Face is arguably one of the best reasons for braving the otherwise intolerable January weather.

This new offering of Dramasoc is based on the works of Noel Coward, and follows the life of Charlie Williams (Alec Burt) – an out of work actor approaching middle age and who is, consequently, feeling persecuted by his friend Euan (Peter Fisher), manager Melissa (Leigh Douglas), housekeeper Miss Drew (Anjali Vjas-Brannick), and the effervescent Captain Clarridge (Ross Cronshaw), yet the story is so much more than this.

‘You’re popular today’ is perhaps the ironical phrase that sums up the emotional pull of the production, and a line that appears twice throughout the dialogue. It is true, Charlie gets an awful lot of callers, but it cannot be said that many of them stay for long, or than their wish to see him arises out of their feelings of friendship towards this foppish and melodramatically difficult middle-aged man.

He is out of work, because he refuses to play roles that are not the romantic lead, he spends most of his time chasing or talking about women and how complicated they are, and his ‘friends’, if they might be called such, badger him to get a job and stop drinking, smoking, and generally ruining his life. This sentiment, however, does not seem to arise from any reciprocal act of companionship from Charlie himself, as he does very little that is not petulant, hammed-up, or entirely contrary to the advice of the only people who care about him.

Comedy is a genre that is often a tenuous effort on the stage, and at times A Slap in the Face did degenerate into rather silly slapstick; that said, it is important to realise the intention behind this. Charlie was not supposed to be realistic, at least not all of the time; rather, he is to be taken as a personification of his ‘type’.

A middle-aged actor facing the decline of his career that dips as the years since his birth increase, and, eventually, his only recourse is one that is rather more drastic than one expects from his earlier behaviour. He is erratic and unpredictable, but the emotions he is feeling and attempting to hide with vulgarity and ostentation are entirely human, and no amount of brawling with friends and pretending to marry your housekeeper can hide this message of a man fighting the inevitability of deterioration – a sentiment compounded by the looming presence of conscription to the German front.

The writing and direction that renders this emotional subtlety possible is something to be marvelled at; the comic and tragic scenes reflect each other with exquisite lucidity, as Charlie’s mood, and indeed the atmosphere of the entire performance, alters when he is ‘slapped in the face’, sometimes quite literally, while at other times with a piece of shocking news or unexpected consequence of his profligacy – but I won’t reveal too much.

As we might come to expect from York’s Dramasoc, there are some astounding performances. (Charlie) himself is often surprisingly humorous when he isn’t being too silly, and it has to be said that his timing was particularly up to the mark – no small feat for an amateur actor. And, though the peripheral characters were largely intended to highlight Charlie’s many foibles – which they too with remarkable clarity – both Douglas, Fisher, and Starling deliver so thoroughly in their respective roles as Charlie’s manager, friend, and accuser, that there are times when one forgets that it is a comedy we have come to see. Douglas’ character is serious and dour, off-setting Charlie’s wanton and arbitrary actions to a tee, while Fisher’s Scots accent to so well done, and his portrayal of an older man with a limp so indicative of the audience’s expectation, one would have believed the young man to be a Scotsman in his thirties; similarly, Starling’s comic aggression and occasional snigger at Charlie’s expense was entirely appropriate and pulled off to so fine a point to be astonishing.

The Dramabarn itself was decked out in quintessential mid-twentieth-century drabness, which perfectly mirrored Charlie’s interior and exterior decay, and the music, though infrequent, was cleverly chosen. All songs of the era, the lines ‘don’t let your daughter join the stage’, ‘the show must go on’, and ‘wish me luck as you wave me goodbye’ were deceptively emotive, and the cheery way in which they were sung mirrored Charlie’s refusal to face his nearing the end.

The level of student theatre at York astounds me with every performance; not only did this play have the writing, direction, production, and talent worthy of the theatre royal, but it was genuinely enjoyable to watch. The wit and satire was not exclusivist, the music and lighting were not chosen to be purposefully obtuse, and the actors delivered their parts with such emotive power and precision that it is no doubt in my mind that bright futures will be had by all who seek them. A Slap in the Face is clever and fresh, and it is indeed sometimes exactly what you need.

You can listen to James' review on In The Stalls by visiting the URY Player