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Animal
Soho Theatre Writers' Centre, London
Ian Shuttleworth

At its best, which is much of its 90-minute continuous running time, Animal stands comparison with the finest of those 20th-century plays that use institutions as microcosms of the country as a whole. In Kay Adshead's three-hander, a female research medic, a male nurse and an elderly human guinea-pig plucked off the street inhabit some kind of psychological-pharmaceutical research centre run by a multinational, but with obvious government complicity.

It is situated in the middle of a London park, in a Britain which is in an undefined state of war and dealing brutally with its domestic protesters. The characters stand for the diligent apparatchik, the conscience-pricked fellow-traveller and a compendium of awkward types.

But the grim achievement of Adshead's play is that it is at once an abstract parable and a quite particular polemic, as one might expect of an author whose last play, The Bogus Woman, was a searing indictment of the realities of the asylum system. It becomes apparent that what is being researched here is a non-lethal chemical weapon which can psychologically pacify enemy forces, rioters or entire populations. Pre-Prozac tranquillisers used to be referred to as the “chemical cosh”; what is envisioned here is such a cosh raised to a societal level. Lest we delude ourselves that research in this area is a paranoid fantasy, the programme includes a list of some 30 websites on the subject. Nor are the events set in a dystopian future, but rather at the end of the last century.

Director Lisa Goldman allows Fiona Bell, Richard Owens and Mark Monero space in which to find characterisations that are natural and organic while still fully serving the play. Goldman's Red Room company, which has produced this presentation at Soho Theatre, once again confirms its reputation for both theatrical and political outspokenness. And, despite a final few minutes which suffer from both being a touch too explicit and from having to recount offstage events to us rather than show them, Adshead makes you want to take to the streets while you still can. (4/5)

The Financial Times - 23rd September 2003

Animal
Soho Theatre, London
September 4-27
Author: Kay Adshead
Director: Lisa Goldman
Producer: Red Room
Cast Includes: Fiona Bell, Mark Monero and Richard Owens
Runing time: 1hr 30mins

In a dystrophic near future, where all public protest is put down by the firm hand of the riot police, the government sets up a special treatment centre where vulnerable patients are used as guinea pigs for the latest weapon of crowd control, tranquillising gas. Surely, this cannot be our own green and pleasant land?

In Kay Adshead's powerful an moving new play, Pongo, a lifelong drunk, finds himself in the secluded detox centre where his recovery from alcohol addiction is twisted by the chemicals he is given as 'treatment'. As he becomes increasingly dependent on the liberal but authoritarian Dr Lee, his only lifeline to reality is the psychiatric nurse, Elmo.

Adshead writes with immense imaginative empathy about psychological disturbance and the side-effects of pharmaceuticals – and her descriptions of police violence and public protest are superbly vivid. Yet her evident anger about the power of drugs companies is also wickedly laced with humour – Elmo spends his free time as an hilarious politically incorrect stand-up comic. Adshead's main point, that do-gooders such as Dr Lee can do as much damage as out and out reactionaries, is cogent and convincing.

Neatly directed by the Red Room's Lisa Goldman, on Soutra Gilmour's simple set, Animal effectively uses evocative video images and boasts a committed cast – Richard Owens as Pongo, Fiona Bell ( Dr Lee ) and Mark Monero playing Elmo – which brings this panoramic play to life. Despite occasional wrong notes, such as Dr Lee's Czech origins, this is a refreshingly alive and thought-provoking piece of political drama.

Aleks Sierz - The Stage