THEATRE REVIEW: Beast In The Jungle - Underground At The Clubhouse - Buxton.

Adapted from the novel of Henry James, 'Beast In The Jungle' is a theatrical duologe by Harry Machray presented this evening as part of Buxton Fringe Festival at Underground At The Clubhouse, by Despite The Monkey Theatre Company. 

With some unnecessarily over-bright and stark lighting shining on the audience at times, director Harry Machray had tried to create a sense of terror into the audience, reflecting the inner turmoil of the story's main character, John Marcher (Dean Michael Gregory).

In this 60 minute onslaught, there is no linear storyline, and in a series of scenelets which aim to show the mental state and insecureties of John Marcher - whether real or imagined was never really fully clear, although his instability and his terror were real enough -and his relationship with the only person who has shown him any friendship, compassion, and even love; his childhood friend, May (Elspeth Todd). Each scenelet emphasises his inner angst and consolidates his relationship with and dependence on May, until (spoiler alert) May passes away before him. The lack of linear structure making it disjointed and the lack of story, boring and repetitive.  

Both Gregory and Todd must be commended on their commitment to this production, they both gave convincing and sincere performances. Despite not being able to imbue fear or terror in the audience or build up any kind of suspense in us [something of a prerequisite in a psychological horror one would have thought!], they did work very well together and there was genuine chemistry between them. The style of the production however left much to be desired. At times it was far too loud, and at others we were left in silence. A similar idea running through the lighting design too. I understand the reasoning for this, but theatrically it became rather too obvious and predictable. Further, we were asked to wear headphones for the duration of this production. This allowed us to listen to certain noises which were not being played out on stage, such as John's inner monologue, or May's ghostly reappearance. This was not only cumbersome but also completely unnecessary; there was nothing aurally that could not have been produced theatrically. Too much reliance on things technical and trying to deliver a multi-media presentation was just throwing too many things into a piece of theatre which, in all honesty, the whole story could have been delivered precisely and concisely in just 5 minutes, and would have been the better for it.

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 12.7.22