Serial Killers    My review


Sex, Drugs and Rock n'Roll (?)

Not quite, but the life and times of Australian soap opera writers can be pretty exciting, too...

by Mel
London, 30 October 2005

When you get to the theatre in Derby your first emotion might be shock, but despite its unusual location in a giant shopping mall, this small, modern playhouse provides a fairly good backdrop for Serial Killers, the new black comedy, brought to the United Kingdom by Australian television writer James Griffin.

"It is a play for the West End, really," Mark Little, star of Serial Killers, and also of Neighbours fame, said to me after the play. Heartily, I agreed. The play, and all involved, deserve the chance to present their work to a wider audience than Derby, a tiny city in the middle of England, with all good will can provide. But for now they are in Derby's Playhouse, and both audience and cast seem to have enjoyed their first interaction last night.

We start out with a glimpse of Heart of Hearts, the soap around which the life of the characters evolves. Presented on a giant screen the audience is witness to a dramatic cliffhanger, so familiar to the avid soap watcher. St Celia's Hospital is on fire, and the curageous staff try to evacuate those in their care. It transpires that one of the patients is missing, and heroic Dr Robert Gilligan runs back into the burning wing to come to her rescue.

That's when the screen goes dark, the light goes up and we are thrown directly into the soap's writing room. There are five writers, two men and three women, whose job it is on this particular day to write Dr Gilligan out of the show. He, despite conveniently running back into the flames, turns out to be very hard to kill. Neither the show's producer Sally, nor any of the writers are keen to tell Andrew Lomas, the actor who plays Dr Gilligan, and last remaining character of the show's original ensemble, that he is about to be axed. Everybody on the team has their own good (or twisted) reasons not to tell Andrew just yet. Predictably, the actor is not happy when he finds out about his character's fate eventually. (On a side note, the story twists are much easier to portray on stage than it is to write about the who-is-and-who-plays-who.)

As in every good soap, a story unfolds on the stage that has romance, betrayal and, above all, the hunger for power and fame. Over the good two hours of the play the audience is taken into a world that, as becomes apparent very soon, is characterized by the keeping and breaking of secrets. The head spins as various pairings and relationships are uncovered between those who work on the series. The twists of the story are over the top, certainly - but that obviously is the intention of Griffin, who, after all, strives to expose the strange world of television writing. Plot twists and credibility are really worthy of a soap, and, so it transpires, it is indeed their own lives the writers use as a blueprint for their writing.

While brimming with wit and sexual innuendo, there are also many chances for the actors to excel in the drama department. Especially Craig Parker, most famous for his role as the Elf Haldir on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, gives a very empathic performance with the more serious aspects of the story. Physically and emotionally exhausting appears especially the second part of the play. Like the perfect soap opera script the break comes at the exact point of heightened anticipation, and it is fortunate that the audience only needs to be patient for twenty minutes until the action commences.

This being the very first night of the previews there certainly were a few glitches in the proceedings, both visible and invisible for the viewer. Thanks to the great effort of the cast and the dynamics of the story, however, these did not diminish the viewing pleasure in the slightest. The setting certainly invites a certain amount of improvising: there are bits of paper lying around everywhere, bottles, cups and computers scattered all across the "table of pain", as the writers call their place of work. The fact that most of the time all of the actors are on stage also inspires creative minds to think of new ways to do things on any given night. For this only it would be worth to see Serial Killers more than once. Sadly, I did not have that chance, so I am crossing my fingers for it to really be picked up for the West End next year.

No review would probably be complete without a few words on those things that did not appeal so much. Thankfully, this list is very short here. The only aspect that immediately comes to mind is the dialogue. Especially in the first, quieter half the exchanges between the characters seem a little drawn out in places, and from time to time I did actually zoom out of the goings-on to wonder if anything might be happening soon. I had the same reaction again during the final act, when, from a very intense and physical rollercoaster the narrative slows down to almost a monologue, albeit very skillfully presented by Mark Little. The play is not meant to go out with a bang, apparently, but from the built-up the audience is led to believe that something big will happen. Maybe the message is that life, unlike soap operas, does have endings, and that we must accept that not everything can be "All Right" all the time, but in this moment the anticlimax feels a little unsatisfactory.

To close this little review I would like to mention that I am by no means a professional theatre critic, and that all I said here must be understood as a comment by a lay-person who wanted to express her positive opinion on Serial Killers, and who hopes that maybe other people will be encouraged to pay Derby a visit to see this very well-written and incredibly well-acted little theatre piece. You will have a good laugh and an exciting evening, and you will certainly not regret going to that extra trouble of seeing a play outside of London.