h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The opening scenes of violence, murder and a brutal gang rape are shocking, but they were meant to be. As the director explained in a talk after the performance, his aim was to get people on the edge of their seats, caught between staying and walking out. Some members of the audience were tipped over that edge and did, indeed, walk out. I, like the majority of the predominantly young, student audience that only half filled the auditorium, stayed, transfixed in horrid fascination.

A Clockwork Orange, as presented by the Northern Stage Ensemble, is not a comfortable play, but it is stylish and perfectly choreographed. A mixture of live performance, video projection of film shot by Mark Murphy and loud music serves to produce an atmosphere of menace and confusion. Surprisingly, for me, the play is not without humour. This is found in the caricature costumes of some of the supporting characters. The nurses’ uniforms and some of the shoes must have been sourced from the local fetishware shop. The primary character, Alex, and his three Droogs, by contrast, are dressed in contemporary streetware, combats and T-shirts.

The play takes us through the violence, Alex’s aversion therapy ‘cure’, his manipulation by political groups and his eventual overcoming of the effects of the therapy, in graphic style. Unlike Kubrick’s film and the original US edition of the book however, this play ends with the final chapter of the Burgess original. Having been cured of the cure Alex does return briefly to violence but renounces it as he reaches maturity. This is not some glib moral ending however:

‘Yes, yes, yes, there it was. Youth must go, ah yes. But youth is only being in a way like it might be an animal. Not, it is not just like being an animal so much as being like one of those malenky toys you viddy being sold in the streets, like little chellokovs made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr grrr and off it itties, like walking, O my brothers. But it itties in a straight line and bangs straight into things bang bang and it cannot help what it is doing. Being young is like being one of these malenky machines. My son, my son. When I had my son I would explain all that to him when he was starry enough to like understand. But then I knew he would not understand or would not want to understand at all and would do all the veshches I had done, yes perhaps even killing some poor starry forella surrounded with mewing kots and koshas, and I would not be able to really stop him. And nor would he be able to stop his own son, brothers. And so it would itty on to the end of the world, round and round and round, like some bolshy gigantic like chelloveck, like old Bog Himself (by coutesy of Korova Milkbar) turning and turning and turning a vonny grahzny orange in his gigantic rookers. But first of all brothers, there was this veshch of finding some devotchka or other who would be a mother to his son. I would have to start on that tomorrow, I kept thinking. That was like something new to do. That was something I would have to get started on, a new like chapter beginning.’

From the first challenging ‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’ to the final, reflective soliloquy this performance rocks.

Another excellent report, BS. I always said you should have done arts in the sixth form I'll look out for the show up here, though I suspect that I'd have to go and see it on my own; can't see the better 8/9ths wanting to experience it.

I was just trying to remember if I'd ever walked out on a show of any kind. The only occasion that comes to mind was during 'Ai No Corrida' at the college film society - and that was mostly because I knew a damn good party was getting going

Ahh...the soliloquy alone gives me reason to want to see this show. Am I starry enough to understand? Probably not, but I know I would not walk out. Comfortable is the rule hereabouts (as perhaps most places I suspect). I'd appreciate the chance to twist comfortable and see its underside.

Zmrzlina, I hope I gave you a taste of what was an excellent and thought provoking evening .

Morgan, my better 7/8ths was very unsure about the whole thing, having walked out of the film many years ago, but she too thought it excellent. It provided fine conversation for the journey home. If you have the chance to see it get your people to talk to my people