FILM: Uncle David – Lowry Theatre

Director: Gary Reich, Mike Nicholls, David Hoyle

Reviewer: Cathy Crabb

The Public Reviews Rating:

An out of season and empty caravan park on the Isle of Sheppey is the setting for the Avant-Garde Alliance’s surreal romance/desolate tragedy Uncle David.

World weary and exasperated by humanity, Uncle David (David Hoyle)has made a promise to save nephew Ashley (Ashley Ryder) from a world of idiots who would never allow him to achieve his full potential.

It could all have been a game, and sympathy or compassion, though they grapple, has no secure hold in this incredibly close and cruel tale.

I thought Ashley was a child, though physically it is very clear he isn’t, the interaction between the characters is a lesson in grooming, but also this could be role play or a manipulation of a man with learning difficulties. One way or another, the character of Ashley truly believes and is at the command of Uncle David.

Another level, which I found really interesting, was Uncle David’s teachings of Ashley. His passionate and patronising poetics seem wasted on Ashley yet this doting brain washed boy child whisked away to a desolate caravan park, has become his only audience I really liked this about the film, because though we as voyeurs were helpless to intervene and had to watch the terrible conclusion at such a slow pace, we knew that we were okay because we were laughing at and not living with Uncle David who can make you do anything, sometimes just to humiliate you for fun.

This film was improvised and shot in three days which is an amazing fete considering the many pictures being painted here and the beautiful way it has been realised. The foggy landscape of the seaside here lends itself entirely to the cut off and blurry relationship that has nothing to do with us, that we are looking in on.

The performances were also a joy to watch, delivered with integrity by two performers of equal idiosyncratic aesthetics.

Hoyle’s condensed milk in cut glass voice and statuesque beauty aside Ryder’s smaller, masculine physique, boyish innocence and the gentle musicality of his tone really add to the attraction and examination of the story.

On reflection, and it is a film that stays with you, it has left a feeling that joy and pain, suffering and celebration are different things to different people and reminds me of one of my favourite quotes from one of my own favourite relatives ‘people are how they are, and not how you want them to be.’