Writer: James Hamer-Morton

Director: Emma Kendrick

Reviewer: John Roberts

The Public Reviews Rating:

It is no surprise that eventually we would see a theatrical MI5 style thriller brought to life on stage; over the past 10 years the cinema has become saturated with such films ‘The Bourne Trilogy’ being just three and our television sets are regularly turning over to watch the latest episode of ‘Spooks’ on BBC. My advice to anyone thinking of seeing Safe House would be to go to Blockbuster hire a series of Spooks or the Bourne Trilogy for £5 and get a much better experience.

It has to be said Broken Pipe Production’s play is technically sound – no surprise given the fact that the company’s main source of income is producing corporate films; however perhaps this is where they should focus all of their attention – what promised to be an exciting piece of theatre ended up as a badly written, poorly executed production that unfortunately manifested itself through the embarrassed laughter from the majority of the audience watching.

Based around an Algerian Terrorist Group who have kidnapped two Government agents, the Home Security Team ‘Control’ set out to resolve everything as quickly as possible, but with a mole in the hole, things don’t run as smoothly as one would hope.

Hamer-Morton’s script is laden with heavy genre padding cliché’s and the script so badly written that it appears it could have been made just to showcase the technological expertise of the company. Kendrick’s direction is also of question – the performances are wafer thin and the delivery of the material from the cast lacks any tension or indeed a grounding of real emotion.

A Safe House – is a promising concept, and one must congratulate the company on its cast of over 50 people – but with a poor script, a badly directed production and a cast that have no energy or charisma on stage, we are unfortunately the ones held to hostage in this excruciating and painful hour of theatre.

Ed Fringe 2010: Safe House – Space @ Surgeons Hall, 3.7 out of 5 based on 3 ratings

Tags: Broken Pipe Films, Edinburgh Fringe 2010, Emma Kendrick, James Hamer-Morton, Safe House, Space @ Surgeons Hall