24:7 Theatre Festival – Flag, Manchester

Writer: Brian Marchbank

Director: Rebecca Taylor

Reviewer: Tracey Lowe

The Public Reviews Rating:

At a time when freedom of both expression and the press are under close scrutiny, Flag seems especially poignant. It is like a modern day Pygmalion, only instead of Eliza Doolittle we have Jimmy Earl (played by Darren Scott), an aging, failing comedian. He is spotted by young writer Mark Poste (Matthew Stead) as a great candidate to embody a new, controversial character he has been working on, Corporal Flag. After twenty years on the circuit, Jimmy takes the opportunity that could prove to be his legacy.

The relationship that develops between Jimmy and Mark makes for some really uncomfortable scenes. But undoubtedly, the most unsettling moment is when Jimmy takes to the stage as Corporal Flag. His material is challenging, edgy and quite astute in places, but the audience is too intimidated to laugh. Matthew Stead’s Mark Poste is so heartless and sociopathic you want to leap on the stage and punch him; the sign of a brilliant actor.

But this was by no means a perfectly polished production; there were flaws. A few lines were fluffed and stumbled over, we could see the actors getting changed through a screen on the stage, and the stage hands were quite distracting in places. But these points are fixable.

The only thing that I found it hard to comprehend is why the public supposedly took to Corporal Flag in the way they did. His material lacked the bite of someone like Frankie Boyle, and given how liberal and diversity aware most comedy fans are, I found it hard to believe a Bernard Manning like character would succeed on the circuit today. Nevertheless, this was a very well-written play, and an engrossing hour of theatre.