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He Died With A Felafel In His Hand
Queens Arms Hotel
Sat 10 March
Until Sat 31 March
Being a big fan of the film of the same name, I was quite keen to see the theatre production of 'He Died...'; a book originally written in 1994 by John Birmingham. Reflected his and other people's horror stories about share-housing. I somehow now wish I hadn't seen the theatre show.
Sure, there was the opening scene where one junkie housemate was found dead with takeaway in hand but this was after a badly depicted, loud teenage party and the guy wasn't really known to anyone. Thereon the deceased remained anonymous and then became totally forgotten as the rest of the cast went about grossly overacting their parts, often with silly wigs and equally bad accents, without ever really giving any consideration to exactly what was meant by the title's emerging metaphor.
The name not only relates critically to the story's main character and his relationship to the dead guy, but you also felt a bond between all the other housemates as well. Of which, all seemed to be bewilderingly represented only in some sort of rushed composite form here.
I admit to having not read the book, but the film's greatest strength was the minimalist approach taken, especially in the dialogue. Where the film spoke volumes, the stage play left you with very little, and that's despite there being on average near three times as many words per minute blurted out!
And yes, I am aware the stage production came first. Overall, I can say I really didn't like this, even though there were quite a few laughs to be had (albeit, cheap ones).
Steve Jones
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