Brian Mitchell and Joseph Nixon’s wrestling play has both the scent of sweat and success. The concept is brilliantly commercial, the characters are beautifully drawn with both humour and tenderness and the plot has plenty going for it too, intrigue, deception, comedy and pathos. Ross Gurney-Randall uses all his talent to give another great performance as Shirley Crabtree AKA Big Daddy and various other cameos along the way. It’s a tender portrayal and an affectionate one but hugely comic too. David Mounfield has the stage presence to appear to be six foot eleven and the skill to play the philosophical gentle Giant Haystacks one moment and the bullying and ambitious wrestling promoter Max Crabtree the next. Max was a force to be reckoned with in British wrestling and with Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks created a TV phenomenon that gained massive audiences, but as quickly as it rose it was killed by TV executive Greg Dyke who cut it from the schedules.
Mitchell and Nixon’s play is massively entertaining but also suffers from being massive, or should I say, a little too long, especially for a 10pm slot. The opening scene rattles along, but later on I felt that in amongst the plot and narrative dialogue, I was being force fed information about other wrestlers, as if they had been copied and pasted into the script to add historical and factual colour. They merely slowed things down and my attention drifted. That said I can see this, if cut, being a hugely popular and entertaining play that will appeal to both theatre and wrestling fans. Bring out your grannies and kiddies, wrestling is back.
The Old Courthouse, 26 May
Rating: 
Andrew Kay
