Silent

Pat Kinevane’s one man drama invades your mind like a bad dream. His derelict, mentally disturbed central character is a real charmer, but one whose past is so scarred that his recollections burn themselves onto the audience’s memory in a sequence of tales of violence, prejudice and despair. His merlot habit keeps him on a knife edge between sanity and lunacy, the grotesque and the elegant, fantasy and bitter truth. Kinevane’s performance is a daring act of bravura that has you laughing and wanting to scream. The thread relating to Rudolf Valentino sometimes jarred but overall added a level of elegant fantasy that allowed him to show a softer side and thus toughen the heartbreaking sadness of the piece.

Pavilion Theatre, Brighton Dome, 6 May 2012
[Rating: 4.5/5 stars]
Andrew Kay