8:00am Saturday 20th March 2010
By Charles Hutchinson
Rum and Coca Cola go together well but can become too much of a good thing and then the headaches begin.
Much the same applies to the partnership of Trinidadian Calypso singers The Professor and Slim, the three-time champion old dog and the young prodigy keen to be taught the tricks of the trade.
Fallen heavily on hard times, and as reliant on regretful drink as Jeff Bridges’ Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, the Professor (Victor Romero Evans) ekes out a living playing for American tourists and sleeping under the stars on his strip of island beach.
Slim (Marcel McCalla) is his naïve new hope, rescued from crack and street deals and blessed with a sweet mile and sweeter voice to go with a burgeoning talent for turning a phrase with the wit and wordplay of his mentor.
All is sweetness and light initially, like the first glass, in an elliptical first half that rides on the crest of a wave of infectious, humorous songs. The teacher-pupil relationship blossoms as they banter over conquests or failures in love, while concocting a satirical snake bite of a new song at the expense of a philandering politician for the annual Calypso contest.
So far, so enjoyable, even if the story is slight and the two-handed structure initially lacks drama in Mustapha Matura’s newly updated version of a play first produced at the Royal Court in 1976 and now revived by the Talawa Theatre Company in tandem with the West Yorkshire Playhouse and English Touring Theatre.
There has to be more to it than jokes and jousting after the interval, and there is. The demons surface in both their lives, the Professor sleeps ever more fitfully and Slim returns to his nefarious past, a knife by his side. Significantly too, the songs die out, no doubt to reflect the darkening, more serious tone as the partnership fractures, but robbing the play of its mojo and most distinctive characteristic.
Don Warrington, the esteemed Trinidadian actor best known for Rising Damp (and those coffee adverts), is making his directorial debut with this revival, and the results are a mixed bag. Engaging characterisation by Evans and McCalla, an evocative Caribbean set by Anthony Lamble and a sense of mischief and mystery are countered by the need for a firmer directorial hand.
Matura hinders his play by not bestowing the world-weary, punch-drunk Professor with sufficient gold dust to suggest his champion past, thereby denying him poignancy, but there is no excuse for the confusing, anti-climactic finale, or for the lack of a closing song to lift deflated spirits; faults that Warrington should have addressed.
*Rum And Coca Cola, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until April 3. Box office: 0113 213 7700
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