Having only read one of the Sherlock Holmes stories all the way through (and this being a number of years ago now, at school); I was initially worried that I wouldn’t understand all of the ‘in’ jokes within the script. To my surprise, the humour was pretty self explanatory, and the allusions made to the works of Conan Doyle were obvious enough without seeming to be pretentious on the part of the writer. The witty writing seemed to be offset by the somewhat slapstick aspect of humour right at the end of the piece, and although this isn’t a bad thing in itself, I felt as though it partially let down the more subtly humorous writing in the first half.

The pace of this play is rather snappy, although pauses are still used in order to facilitate humour, which works to a great effect. Whilst there are parts which go through seemingly lengthy expanses of dialogue, the action carries on at a decent speed and flows rather smoothly from one situation to the next. Again, I felt as though the end let the overall piece down a little. Abrupt, and with a taste that seems almost unfinished, it’s suddenly the final curtain and the audience is left (in the actual theatre as well as after reading the text) as though it should simply be an interval, instead of the end of the whole piece.

Character wise, the satirising of Holmes and Watson was done rather well, and the two protagonists fit in with the ‘larger than life’, stereotypical conniving villainess and the slightly dim but well-meaning policeman. Each character has their own type of humour, each different a little from the last. We as readers/audience members also get a bit of a back-story regarding all four characters. Although this information is limited, it is nevertheless just the right amount to make these otherwise satirical, farcical beings just human enough to be able to relate to and to some degree, care about.

I was however, a little disappointed with the ending. It was as though the author knew they were either running out of steam, or running out of time, and thus had to wrap things up and end them rather quickly. So much more could have been done in order to wrap it up a little better, including making the ending wittier, instead of presenting the readership with an innuendo that was so obvious it was almost painful. Thankfully, the ending of this play isn’t absolutely dire, but I did find it a bit of a shame.

All in all, the play has a strong plot and very witty dialogue. It’s easy to see why it received good reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2009.

To visit the official Broken Holmes website, click HERE.

The general plotline follows two men, Algernon and Jack, who both seem to lead double lives in a sort of country-mouse, town-mouse manner. Upon falling for two different women, each man confesses that his name is ‘Earnest’, since the women in question refuse to marry a man with any other name. Cue the ‘mistaken identity’ motif here for the audience to have a good laugh at, and allow the characters to have a happy ending.

It isn’t the farcical nature of the play which particularly amuses me, especially since these reviews are about the scripts themselves instead of any performances I may have seen. Rather, it’s the fact that Oscar Wilde subverts so many of the contemporary sensibilities, as well as making a statement by then rounding off with an utter subversion at the end. ‘But you said it ends happily!’ I hear you cry, dear reader. This is absolutely true. Taking the line (from the play itself, no less), “The good end happily, and the bad unhappily. This is what fiction means”, strangely shows the audience the transparent ‘fourth wall’ within the play…by making it absolutely clear that the play is a work of fiction. An odd way of doing things perhaps, but for me, it certainly shows Wilde’s penchant for being both unconventional, and also his ability to mess around with conventions instead of having to strictly adhere to them.

For the first three quarters of the play, the writing is light and witty, and even simply reading it on a page conjures up the setting and the people in the mind’s eye almost as clearly as seeing them moving about on an actual stage. I say the first three quarters of the play, because that was when it started to get a little too farcical even for me. The amusement I felt at the opening unfortunately began to turn into a sort of bafflement by the end of the piece, which was a shame considering how well I believed it had carried itself up until that point. The ‘mistaken identity’ motif gave way to actual silliness (“A handbag!?!” still rings in my mind, thank you Dr. Dawson). Perhaps this is just me, but I think it spoils it a little. Mr. Wilde, I feel, could have done a lot better.

The characters themselves have not only a levity to them (as one would expect from this work), but also a liveliness which I personally don’t see that often in such piece of literature. (Perhaps I’m reading the wrong ones? Answers on a postcard). Plays are usually brought to life by the actors, but in this particular written work, the characters seem to have a life of their own, as it were. This isn’t to necessarily say that they are ‘lifelike’, but there’s a certain vivacity there which ensures that the characters aren’t hollow ‘vessels for dialogue’ who have to be dragged along, kicking and screaming, by the plot.

In terms of readability, it’s one of those plays that you could quite comfortably read in one afternoon, reclined in an armchair with a nice cup of tea. A light, amusing foray into the almost playful subversion of Victorian sensibilities, it’s really a pleasure to read. Although I wish I had been pre-warned about just how farcical the ending finishes up being. It did leave me a little disappointed on that score, but I do believe that the rest of the play more than made up for it. I can honestly state the opinion that this piece of literature is a part of the literary canon for a very good reason.

A good read for someone who doesn’t take such things too seriously.

Okay, I’m afraid you will have to bear with me on this review, dear reader. Not because I don’t really have anything to say about the latest play I’ve been told to read during my last term as an English undergraduate, but rather because after finishing this piece, I’m still rather torn as to how I feel about it.

As a play which premiered in 1957 at the Royal Court in London, and set in a post-apocalyptic world, it’s easy to see the preoccupation it seems to have with the hopelessness brought on by war. On the surface, Endgame is a rather depressing play about four protagonists, all of whom live out a miserable and inane existence together. After the nuclear war, the now blinded character of Hamm is unable to stand, his servant Clov is unable to sit…and his (literally) legless parents live in two dustbins downstage. (At this point, I must confess to constantly being reminded of the character ‘Grouch’ from the Muppets each time these bins are mentioned, which didn’t help my reading of the play).

Taking a look beneath the gloomy surface however, reveals a rather dark, satirical side to the writing which (once seen), hits you over the head repeatedly until you’re almost begging for mercy. That isn’t to say that this piece is necessarily negatively repetitive (it is repetitive in some instances, but thankfully not superfluously so) but it does have the same effect as a modernist painting. It’s better viewed if you tilt your head to the side and squint a little.

In terms of the subject matter, it’s a testament to Beckett in his ability to jump from serious to nonsensical to downright humorous dialogue at the drop of a hat. Despite the overall message of this play being something which wouldn’t exactly make you cry with laughter, there are instances where it’s almost impossible to refrain from smiling before you’re once again plunged into the vat of black satire. Despite being written over 50 years ago, with the current climate of this planet being how it is, the theme of nuclear fallout is still eerily applicable. This point isn’t perhaps one that works to the favour of the writing itself…but it does mean that half a century later, the audience is able – to some degree – to identify with the piece.

The pace of this play is quick. The characters tend to talk to one another (or to themselves in some cases) in single sentences. My earlier comment about the repetition of dialogue is applicable here. Due to these short bursts of speech, when a character either repeats themselves or someone else, it doesn’t seem to drag on for any length of time, although admittedly, I personally found the technique to get a little tiresome after a while.

I mentioned at the start of this review that I was undecided as to how I felt about this play, and despite most of the comments I’ve put thus far being positive, this still holds true. In a play (or any piece of literature, really) in which little to nothing happens, I come to expect instead some sort of dialogue which will make me want to sit down and consider its implications. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t really find that here. There are one or two interesting observations made by the characters, but on the whole once I managed to find some of the underlying themes to the play, I recoiled to a state of – dare I say it – apathy.

Unlike other modernist works, this particular piece of literature didn’t evoke any emotional response from me. I didn’t really care what happened to the characters, and I wasn’t intrigued about how or why the post-apocalyptic world had come to such a state. Even though we’re never told, I wouldn’t have bothered asking anyway.

Then again, although I can’t imagine why, perhaps that’s what Beckett aimed for. Those modernists always seemed to have an agenda of some sort.

Genre: Play

Plot Outline: This play tells the story of a young girl’s struggle to continue doing what she loves, even against the wishes of her parents. Menolly runs away from home and the oppressive life in order to continue playing music and find her place on the world of Pern. Whilst alone she manages to bond to nine fire lizards – small draconic creatures – and after a harrowing experience, she finds out that sometimes, your luck can turn.

Characters: The thing that can be first noticed about each character in this play is their individuality. Whilst the cast isn’t huge, it isn’t exactly tiny either, with twelve named characters. The main character, Menolly, seems to be the part in all of us which feels as though they would do anything to accomplish their dream. Whilst not entirely ‘human’ in quality – she makes some decisions that no-one in their right mind would do – we as readers are still able to empathise with her, since we’ve all been in a similar position of wanting something that seems almost impossible to get.

Style: Perhaps strangely for a play as visual as this, the style of speech is rather plain. I personally feel as though a little more could have been done with one or two of the characters in terms of their lines. The stage directions tend to be rather vague in places, but I suppose that means a lot can be left up to the director to decide upon. The timeline of the play is straight forwards. There are no scenes within scenes, and there are no flashbacks or anything of that sort. With Dragonsong having such large visuals, this can only be considered a good thing.

Opinions: From the bias point of view of someone who has thoroughly read and enjoyed the novel that this play is based upon, I rather enjoyed it. For the most part it stayed true to the themes of the book, even if it didn’t – or rather, couldn’t – entirely follow the novel step by step. I was almost impressed with the depth of character that it allowed. Attempting to look at it from the point of view of someone who has never read a Pern novel before, I came to the conclusion that the play was able to more or less convey all the different terminologies well, apart from a couple that were more difficult to explain. As a read, I think because it’s based on a book, it would be less dull to view from cover to cover than other plays, and I believe that this only makes it more endearing as a piece of literature, and certainly as an item of interest to Anne McCaffrey fans.

Audience: All

Possibly one of the most unusual but intriguing methods that this writer used was the lack of character names. Within the text, there is a hyphen present each time the speech moves over to another character, but there are no designations. Is the speech between two characters or five? What are their genders and ages? Whilst admittedly a little disgruntling at first, after reading the first couple of parts, that suddenly didn’t matter anymore. It allowed me as a reader to think of the characters in terms of their speeches, not in terms of what the director had thrust upon me. To be honest it was very refreshing, and I can certainly admire the flexibility which this technique may afford to any director who wishes to adapt this piece.

You also never see the main characters. Or rather, the people whom the narrators are talking about (for it seems that the dialogue and speeches are pieces of narration instead of traditional character-interaction) doesn’t have any talking parts. Despite this, I could quite easily imagine their actions on the stage as though I was reading stage directions for them (which, by the way, there weren’t any of). The dialogue between the narrators is chilling, and very vivid. It’s very, very difficult to not be drawn in, despite the fragmented nature of the play. I’d personally say that this would be a rather interesting text to sit down and analyse properly, segment by segment. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time to do that myself, and it wouldn’t really be appropriate for a review here on Inspired-Quill…but I must admit I’m tempted to get that book back and have a closer look at it.

This play is written in seventeen segments. Although there is indeed a certain amount of cohesion within the story, at first these parts seem to be utterly fragmented. ‘Attempts on her life’ is certainly not something that you might wish to read when you’re tired or unable to concentrate properly. The relatively small segments allow for pauses in between reading, making it, in this sense, more accessible to those who perhaps would enjoy reading it but don’t have a spare hour or three to sit down and devour something in one go.

I think as long as the reader is able to actually engage and work properly with the text in order to generate meaning and cohesion between the characters and segments, it’s a thoroughly rewarding piece of literature. It’s certainly one of the best plays that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading…and that’s including my beloved ‘Dragonsong’ play.

If you are someone who enjoys reading this medium of literature, and you’re not afraid to take a step away from the more classical Senecan plays…then buy the book and add it to your permanent collection.

Genre: Play

Plot Outline: Based in the small town of Grover’s Corners, the play moves through arguably the three most important stages of a person’s life. Family life, marriage, and finally death. Following the lives of the inhabitants of the town, the play proves to be an almost allegorical representation of a small American town in the early part of the Twentieth century. ‘Our Town’ essentially takes the audience through the lives (and deaths) of a host of people who – for want of a better term – are ‘Joe public’.

Characters: Despite the seemingly bland outline of the play in question, there are actually a few interesting characters here. Although perhaps strangely, it is the minor characters who seem to be the most intriguing, making the reader/audience want to know more about backgrounds that are only vaguely hinted at. I suppose the pay-off is that the main characters, to most extents are easily accessible. You’ve probably lived next to a ‘Mrs Webb’, chatted to a ‘Mrs Soames’ and hung out with a ‘George’ or ‘Emily’ at school. Unfortunately, this doesn’t prevent them from seeming to be – if not dull – then rather ordinary and without any particularly interesting quirks or attributes.

Style: If we were going to first talk about the Sub-heading of the play, we would comment on the fact that it is written in three acts, instead of the more common two. This actually works rather well when reading through the play, splitting the different stages up into segments which had clear distinctions from the previous one. The ‘action’ itself however, moves backwards and forwards between different times, which would get rather confusing if it weren’t for the character of the ‘Stage Manager’, who is essentially the Narrator, helping the audience to keep up with what’s happening.

Critics: ‘Our Town’ has won acclaim through a number of critics, not including the Pulitzer Prize it managed to gain in 1938. Even Albert Einstein was a fan of this play. Yes, the Albert Einstein.

Opinions: Although this play has me divided on what I thought of it, essentially, it’s a very good production to go and see performed. When done correctly the emotions of the characters are really able to shine through – especially in the heart wrenching last act. However, if I was simply reading this play for leisure, I doubt I would have read past the first act. Which is a shame, because to read, it’s Act 3 that steals the glory. Large segments of the script actually made me want to skip to the next part, and at a read-through in an actual rehearsal, that’s never a good thing. I suppose my main umbrage lies with the character of the Stage Manager. I don’t mind plays which have narrators, but there were long segments of speech that were simply useless to the overall pacing of the play, slowing it down and losing my interest. Whilst ‘Our Town’ touches on certain topics that most people will be able to relate to, it’s spoiled by a hindrance of pacing at certain points. If you want to read this play instead of going to see it at the theatre, I’d suggest taking a glance at Act 3 first, where the majority of thought-provoking writing is.

Audience: 13+