Nostalgia
Alma Tavern Theatre
until October 10

By Sophia Lomax

Chuck a bag of big ideas into the season of new plays at the Alma Tavern Theatre, set to spin and see what marvels come out.

And Nostalgia, by Jimmy Whiteaker, is undoubtedly a marvel. Its neat scaffolding of self-consciously zany plot and counterplot belies a scathing, anarchic heart that sets out to topple ideals of altruism and open government that most of us hold dear, despite Gordon Brown’s arguable failings to the contrary.

The cast dazzles in a rainbow of roles: so much so that it’s a game of more than two halves to work out who’s who: it takes an intriguing while to figure out, say, that the jolly, sporty one is on a murderous self-destruct mission, or that the genteel, faithful wife who’s been murdered  is  - ta da – anything but.

Using a quartet of excellent singing voices, atmospheric slow-mo action to mark scene changes and a carefully tailored soundtrack, things move along at a lick.

There’s a gloriously barmy plot involving a bunch of Brummie, cod-MI5, breakaway security service operatives – all called Dave – and the infiltration into their ranks of a Chinese spy reincarnated as the Dalai Lama. He’s tracked down, improbably, via the phone book, leading to a failed shoot-out in the ball pit of a children’s soft play centre where an arch-Bristolian suicide bomber’s device is fatally set off by a group hug.

Confused? You will be, in a world where holidays consist of trips to the sites of terrible wars, where British upper lips are stiffened to the point of causing acute suffering to those who don’t fit in and those in charge keep their grip using coded messages of such splendour as “the chipmunk is doing the moonwalk”.

Sure, it’s easy to see the joins, where a new writer is patently learning how to juxtapose unlikely scenarios in order to make his point to an audience constantly on the brink of bewilderment, but, admirably, this doesn’t detract a jot from Nostalgia’s punch.

The plethora of points are salient, clearly made and it is a pleasure to see what creative fruit is being borne simply out of new writing being nurtured and developed properly.

Catch Nostalgia until October 10, with more new plays at the Alma to follow.

For more information:

Alma Tavern Theatre, 18-20 Alma Vale Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 2HY
Tel: 0117 973 5171
www.almataverntheatre.co.uk

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