Frank is just a normal person, waiting for a blind date on a Saturday night in Liverpool. He doesn’t think for one minute that this one night out will change anything about his life. How wrong can one person be?
Robert Farquhar’s new comedy drags you into the dark corners of a mad night out that we have all experienced to some degree. Whether it was in our student years, a hen night or just old fashioned getting drunk with your mates, there is something in this play that will make you either laugh out loud, or make you hang your head in shameful recognition.
From the moment Cindy enters the bar Frank’s night gets very long and complicated, not to mention weird. She has answered Frank’s ad on a dating website, and immediately likes him because ‘You’re a bit like me dad.’
Things move fast and then get more interesting when Cindy’s boyfriend, Vince turns up. His playboy lifestyle is one that Frank has not come across before. An odd friendship blossoms between these two characters, and Frank is introduced to sex, drugs and bad karaoke – Vince style. But it's not all full of bad singing, joy riding or suicide attempts. There is a softer side to the story. After the maddest night out that Frank has ever had, he might just have found the woman of his dreams after all.
Con O’Neil plays Vince with such energy, and delivers his lines with pace and meaning. His character is full of flaws, flittering from one obsessive behaviour to another, and he does this effortlessly. Frank is played by Alan Stocks, whose performance is outstanding. Between the two of them they deliver their lines with ease and the comic timing is spot on.
We are taken around the city, from Concert Square to A&E, a swanky apartment to a burnt out nightclub. There is no set but there are video sequences that ensure slick scene changes. Beware of loud music, and a dodgy Elvis impersonator.
The writing is superb, slick and funny. It doesn’t miss a trick as it moves from scene to scene. Dead Heavy Fantastic was first performed as a rehearsed reading at the Everyword festival in 2010 and was a massive hit. This is Farquhar’s second Everyman show, after writing ‘A Word Does Not Exist’ as part of the Everyman’s Anthology season last year.
Directed by Matt Wilde, this production is everything a night out at the theatre should be. A few drinks with your best mates, a bit of a boogie, maybe a dodgy song on the karaoke finished off with a doner kebab. But over all, a night out that will definitely make you laugh.
Tremendous.
9/10
Dead Heavy Fantastic is on at the Everyman until the 2nd April. Please see www.everymanplayhouse.com for more details.
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