Review – Angry Young Man
Venue: Holden Street Theatres | Buy Tickets | Website
Note: Throughout the Fringe, we’ll have a few shows reviewed by multiple reviewers, so you can get a couple of different perspectives – a second opinion.
Angry Young Man is a tour de force. Written by British writer Ben Woolf, it’s a challenging piece of writing and brilliantly executed on stage. Four actors, a plethora of characters and all of them interchangeably play the protagonist, Yuri, a young immigrant surgeon who’s just arrived in England. The story has political undertones, but when you come down to it, it’s a damn good comedy that touches on many different facets of immigration.
The four actors, Gabeen Khan, Iddon Jones, Paul Shelford, and Andy Peart are all (mostly) in sync and quite often the action on stage is reminiscent of a dance show. The dialogue is crisp and there are plenty of laughs to be had. Last time (2006) the show won the Adelaide Fringe Award for Best Theatre and it’ll definitely be in the running for more accolades this time around.
The story is of Yuri, a surgeon from Eastern Europe who flies to London with little english and big hopes. In the words of playwright/director Ben Woolfe, four actors deliver drama, slapstick and wit with a composed wink. They all play Yuri; switching roles, twirling chairs and simply being cheeky with what is an astute presentation of that perennial problem – immigration.
The new cast have bought their own texture, and do not yet have the militant timing of the original show (which was a bit like a Russian ballet in it’s precision), but Angry Young Man has not lost it’s kick.
