★★★★★
Holden Street Theatres’ Edinburgh Fringe Award ’22 with Lawrence Batley Theatre, KETCHUP Predictions, and Richard Jordan Productions. Holden Street Theatres. 15 Feb 2023
Hints of the strange are there. Subtle, and not so subtle.
Biggest hint? Boarded up window from the inside with white lacy curtains drawn closed. Smallest hint? Relief shadow on the wall where a crucifix once hung.
Medium hint? This tall young man draped in women’s string tie dressing gown and pyjama shorts who addresses the audience with sunshine bright warm familiarity, raising a glass of champagne announcing buoyantly, “I’m Daniel Valentine, and it’s my 18th Birthday!”
Well, that doesn’t seem so bad. So the audience settles in as Daniel proceeds to tell his story. He’s bubbly, shiny, vaudeville vivacious gliding about the drab room as if to soften the impact of that boarded up window (and what it might mean).
Daniel’s life seems a tough but exciting one, also sad. His brilliant, supportive, dominant, divorced Mother, parish Church life and difficult school life seem in balance.
Along comes the countervailing influence of singer Jane McDonald. Suddenly, Mother and son, devoted Christian believers in the rapture, have a new saviour, Daniel’s story starts turning distinctly grey, charcoal to outright black.
Director/writer Phillip Stokes’ tightly written script is given the most sensational interpretation by Jack Stokes as Daniel, aided by Annie May Fletcher’s subtle sound design and Craig Lomas’s suggestive set and lighting.
Jack Stokes holds the audience with a maturity of stage craft expected of an actor 20 years his senior. He manages giving life to a little boy and a late teen in crisis effortlessly. There is joyousness even amidst the most deranged of experiences and circumstances. It is an utterly hypnotising experience. You want to, but cannot deny the darkness of this life revealed. You stay hooked, right to the end. Because you just can’t look away. Daniel is just too engaging.
David O’Brien
When: 14 Feb to 19 Mar
Where: The Studio – Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
