E-mail to a friend Find tickets

Babylone

Published Tuesday 3 November 2009 at 12:15 by Peta David

A chance meeting between a vagrant and city businessman in the lobby of the smart apartment block on Christmas eve is not all it is seems. Initially they play their roles - the vagrant asking for spare change; the businessman looking uncomfortable and accusing the stranger of making him feel guilty, as he only has a few coins to give. A few pithy facts are dropped into the script about the numbers of homeless people sleeping rough. However, this is not a play about homelessness particularly. Peter Tate plays the vagrant with an air of having been someone in a previous life. Even though he is grubby and sleeping rough, he is evidently more than he appears, with a profound and deadly purpose.

It is a journey of enlightenment for Johnnie Lyne-Pirkis’s city slicker, the managing director of a national newspaper. His neat little world unravels before him whilst his family lie sleeping. We are exposed to the raw emotion of this respectable family man in turmoil portrayed with just enough frustration and bathos to be credible. The two men at their first meeting are poles apart and yet gradually they are drawn inexplicably into each other’s world with one common factor - ‘Gabby’. This is a beautifully crafted one-act play, skilfully directed by Hamish Glen, the artistic director of Belgrade Theatre.

E-mail to a friend Find tickets