Reviews
The Press review from York Theatre Royal performances
Everyone has a second chance the second bounce of the title if they have the guts or can be bothered.
Two old school friends contemplate this life change when reacquainted after a ten-year hiatus by a reunion party that boozing Luke can't remember and David would prefer to forget.
David (Tom Cantrell) has slumped into the slough of despond of middle-management, mortgage slavery and a misfiring marriage. He likes order but awakes gingerly to the strange smells and discarded fag and crisp packets of Luke's flat; what he needs is a change of scenery and disorder, as hung-over busker Luke (Michael Lightfoot) will tell him once he awakes for his cigarette breakfast.
This dilemma is the shirt versus the T-shirt, the opportunity versus the missed opportunity, for the Cold Feet and This Life generation, written and performed by college friends Cantrell and Lightfoot in a one-act play with shades of Beckett's Waiting For Godot, Pinter's pregnant pauses and the intuitive, anarchic bonding of Cook and Moore.
Nick Drake, Aimee Mann and Sufjan Stevens add musical commentary to a philosophical, poignant drama with surprising clout under the precise direction of Kate Lovell.
By contrast, the York company's debut work, Return Of The Actor, is a frivolous, fast and daft sketch show inspired loosely by Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, as two hapless backstage assistants blow their moment in the sun with Ian McKellen. It works too hard for its rushed laughs, but Second Bounce is richly promising.
Charles Hutchinson, The Press, Thursday 20th July 2006
Northern Echo review from York Theatre Royal performances
Sir Ian, having drunk several bottles of wine, has choked on a peanut Revel in his dressing room. He's not wearing any trousers, which is only to expected as Return Of The Actor is a farce where such garments are regularly discarded. Sir Ian's demise is the result of two eager-to-please but incompetent backstage assistants assigned to look after him before a stage talk.
Return Of The Actor is one half of a double bill of new plays from York-based Dusk Productions - performers Tom Cantrell and Mike Lightfoot and director Kate Lovell - that played in The Studio this week in advance of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Cantrell and Lightfoot both write and act. Their partnership shows in the excellent teamwork as events surrounding Sir Ian's unfortunate departure unfold. Setting fire to his beard and a makeshift seance with a Bob the Builder beaker do little to help but provide plenty of laughs.
The frantic comedy is the opposite of the more leisurely pace of Second Bounce, about two friends meeting again at a school reunion after ten years. David has a job, a wife and might be deemed successful. Luke has an untidy flat, busks for a living and a lucky piece of heather that he's mislaid. Backed by a splendid soundtrack, the pair talk over old times and wonder if they made the right decisions along the way. It's often more about what's not said that what is said but Cantrell and Lightfoot's rapport make it all the more credible.
The Nortern Echo, Wednesday 19th July 2006
Review from the City Screen double bill
Second Bounce is a play about the times when you wake up on an old friend's sofa and take in the strange decor. As your hangover fades, you remember how much has changed since you were last there. Old friends David, a middleclass manager with a wife and a mortgage, and Luke, a busker who pays his rent in copper coins, lost touch ten years ago. A friends reunited-style school party brings them together in this philosophical drama about how we should make changes in our lives. It is the well-loved theme of missed opportunity - which is fine if you believe this can happen at the grand old age of 28. This drama feels more like a short and poignant TV film than a one-act stage play. It has the kind of walk off/walk back on scenes where the action that happens outside and is discussed from the safety of the living room.
Return of the Actor, on the other hand, is like a bright new routine at a comedy night. There's no need to explain why the characters need to take off their pants, stock up on Revels chocolates or decide to hack off Ian McKellen's arm. The persistent laughter coming from the audience prove these bungling stagehands and their cringe worthy situation have completely caught our attention. Actors Tom Cantrell and Michael Lightfoot, actual school friends and recent graduates who also wrote the plays, are at their best as this amazing comic duo.
Yorkshire Evening Press, Wednesday 9th November 2005
Feedback for Return of the Actor
"The movement of the characters' excitement at being near Ian to the eventual dislike of him is good and the writers very neatly capture the stereotypical idea of the obnoxious actor - this play would appeal to people who are in the know about the conventions and traditions of theatre."
Jodie Marshall, West Yorkshire Playhouse
"An enjoyable and quirky farce."
Royal Court Theatre
