La Belle Angele
Aug 10-13, 15-26 (13:30)

Esto Perpetua

Any play that starts with Mani’s well funky bass bit from I Am the Ressurrection that kicks off the big jam at the end of the Roses’ first album will do for me, like, & so my initial instinct proved. It was indeed quite ironic me sitting down in La Belle Angele for the first show of its daily program, Better Days, for I’d been on & off it since Saturday & my head was in some reyt bits. I’d taken something or other at some point or other & thus found myself flying far easier back in time to the late 80s/early 90s, when Better Days was set… to when the soliloquizing ‘Danny’ of this solo show began his journey from lager-swilling, hooligan-battering casual, to euphoric raver at the Dancing Dawn of that glorious New Age, when the pills were pure & the buzz was amazing & the love dripping down from the heavens mingl’d with the sweat of loved-up clubbers rebounding off the ceilings.

The piece comes from the now well-establish’d pen of Ben Tagoe, & it open’d down Leeds way about 6 months ago. Set in some nameless northern town, its got that anonymous run-down shit-hole streaking with all the colors of the rave rainbow kinda vibes going on. The drugg’d up period in which the play struts its stuff to some reyt bangin early 90s, bass-thumping, arm-waving classics coincides with my own ‘cultural’ awakening lets say, as a Burnley boy down the Lazerdrome in Peckham, London, having my first initiatory half-pill, follow’d not long after by trips with the Barnoldswick posse to the Orbit in Morley. I was well on board with this play, like.

“Guru Josh – what kind of a name is that? Start listening to that shit & yer out”
Danny’s Dad

I was also digging Ben’s bounding script bubbling with hip-hop standard rhyming, all pouring from the flawless tongue of Danny’s addictive & inspiring performance. Danny is play’d by a certain George Martin, who pulls off all the nuances of the play – highs & lows, darks & lights, pure & gouchy – with an impressive skill set & a confidence that belies the fact that this is first professional stage job. He has never really actually studied drama – a pure natural talent to light up a pure natural script. A casting director friend of Ben’s had spotted him in a workshop and recommended him, just like they were buzzin’ on a dance floor somewhere. “This is my new best mate, Ben, he’s well sound & can act like fuck!” “Nice one, I fuckin’ love you brother.”

It’s not all about the boys, tho’, Danny’s love relationship, & just how beautiful ecstasy-induced love can be, plays a prominent part of the play; as does Danny’s relationship with his dad & his innate & difficult to shed love of thuggery. All in all a cheeky masterwork, whose only drawback is that it’s on far too early in the day. I’d love to see this being perform’d to a room full of ravers – me being one of ’em.

Damo