I'm Spartacus, The Unity Theatre 15/09/99

Andy Quayle's I'm Spartacus catalogues the depraved lives of a closeted gay MP, an out of work actor and a gangster pimp. The story portrayed was reminiscent of many modern day TV dramas, with twists and turns leading to the inevitable moral message that nothing is ever as it seems to be, especially in the realm of human relationships.

From the start the actors appeared nervous, overacting their parts to such a degree that their characters seemed almost farcical. This soon gave way to a more relaxed performance full of comedy moments, political satire and modern day references.
Brookside was often referred to in terms of "when it was good," receiving ripples of laughter from the audience. At times there was such realism and shock tactics that the audience didn't quite know how to respond. The most telling example of this was a male rape scene creating both gasps of horror and smothered giggles.

The finale left everyone with a smile on their faces. Must have been the sight of an MP dressed in stockings and suspenders dancing around a tied up gangster pimp to the sounds of Marliyn Munro...

Ordinarily, I'd run a mile from any event during which the concepts of "physical" and "theatre" collide. Studying drama had left me scarred. How exactly balancing bare-foot on my mate's backside, eating invisible sausages and singing Randy Crawford's 'Almaz' conveyed the notion of "guilt" was beyond me. Three years on and I'm cured. And if you're going to be proven wrong, it may as well be by a company as kick-ass as Kaos whose inspirational take on Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Ernest' guarantees the wholesale conversion of the anti-black legging brigade.

Kaos weave slapstick and opera, clowning and cartoon costumes around the script without sacrificing a syllable of Wilde's celebrated wit. The players in this classic comedy of manners, identity and social (mis)conduct have been time-warped into the 90s, the lead players transformed into wide-boy social climbers, hyper-active clubbers and coked-up rich bitches. The trance-dance musical interludes add to the clubland undercurrent - a noisy chasm where image defines character, the chosen ones are consumed by sartorial obsession and being out of the "in-crowd" is too cruel to contemplate. Kaos' interpretation works well mainly because, had they not been straight- jacketed by social graces, Wilde's characters probably would have gone at it with all the restraint of a mid-week soap.

Kaos' theory is that the bickering between Gwendolen (Jordan Whyte) and Cecily (Jill Norman) escalates into an hilarious nipple-twisting, bum-slapping and hair-pulling frenzy, Lady Bracknell (Sharon Schaffer) is unspeakably repulsive, dripping sickening snobbery and delivering the infamous 'handbag' line like she'd swallowed the devil's shite. Jack Corcoran's Algernon Moncrieff is your company's third floor sales manager with the comedy tie and Ralf Higgins' fabulous Jack Worthing is the effervescent regular at Garlands.

Even Wilde's wardrobe, typically associated with smoking jackets and smile-while-your-ribs-are-breaking corsets, is overhauled. Here Gwendolen's an official ambassador for bargain-rail Top Shop, Cecily is Baby Spice meets Barbie. The guys visually devour the space in leopard skin, leather and enough purple to give old-school Prince a hard-on. Added to all the magnificent madness of the show is an overriding message: Oscar Wilde's observational studies, as his recent cinematic resurrection verifies, are timeless and sadly, the barriers of class and money are forever etched on you
and me.

Lisa Symonds