Ausam/distribut.doc/milarr.n
.nh
.pl 12i
.ll 85
ARTS PAGE.
.sp 3
Shunt's Utopia.
.sp 2
Gavin Milarrrrrrrrr writes:
.sp 2
.ti 5
Neville Shunts latest west end success
- It all happened on the 11.20 from
Hainault to Redhill via Horsham and
Reigate, calling at Carshalton Beeches,
Malmesbury, Tooting Bec and Croydon West
is currently appearing at the Limp Theatre
Piccadilly. What Shunt is doing in this, as
in his earlier nine plays, is to express
the human condition in terms of British
Rail.
.sp 1
.ti 5
Some people have made the mistake of
seeing Shunt's work as a load of rubbish
about railway timetables, but clever people
like me who speak loudly in restaurants see
this as a deliberate ambiguity, a plea for
understanding in a mechanised ethos. The
points are frozen, the beast is dead. What
is the difference? What indeed is the
point? The point is frozen, the beast is
late out of Paddington. The point is taken.
If La Fontaine's elk would spurn Tom Jones,
the engine must be our head, the dining car
our oesophagus, the guards van our left
lung, the cattle truck our shins, the first
class compartment the piece of skin at the
nape of the neck and the level crossing an
electric elk called Simon. The clarity is
devastating. But where is the ambiguity?
Over there in a box. Shunt is saying the
8.15 from Gillingham when in reality he
means the 8.13 from Gillingham. The train
is the same, only the time is altered. Ecce
homo, ergo elk. La Fontaine knew its sister
and knew her bloody well. The point is
taken, the beast is moulting, the fluff gets
up your nose. The illusion is complete; it
is reality, the reality is illusion and the
ambiguity is the only truth. But is the
truth, as Hitchcock observes, in the box?
No, there isn't room, the ambiguity has put
on weight. The point is taken, the elk is
dead, the beast stops at Swindon, Chabrol
stops at nothing, i'm having treatment and
La Fontaine can get knotted.
.sp 1
Gavin Milarrrrrrrrrrrrr wrrrrrrrrrote.