Ayckbourn, Alan - Tom Morris (review date 1991)
Tom Morris (review date 1991)
SOURCE: A review of The Revengers' Comedies, in Times Literary Supplement, No. 4622, November 1, 1991, p. 18.
[In the following review, Morris unfavorably reviews The Revengers' Comedies, focusing on the play's weak plot and unbelievable characters.]
Every character in this play is wound up, placed on the stage and allowed to potter to its doom without turning to right or left. Although Alan Ayckbourn invokes the rich heritage of revenge tragedy, and his promoters have spattered the programme with portentous quotations from Nietzsche, Heraclitus and Gaboriau, this kind of fatedness is the natural province of farce. The humiliations of his hero, well played as a sort of tragic Winnie-the-Pooh by Griff Rhys Jones, are compelling because he can’t see his way out of them.
The Revengers' Comedies is meticulously structured in twos. Not only is it performed in two episodes over two...
[The entire page is 700 words long]
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