The Stage

Barflies

Published Thursday 9 February 2012 at 10:41 by Thom Dibdin

Sharply visceral, Grid Iron’s revival of its tainted interpretation of Charles Bukowski’s short stories sways and saunters back and forth along the pub bar in which it has located itself. Keith Fleming as Henry Chinaski is a drooling, wretched drunk whose words fly up into beautiful, earthy poetry. He is a man whose memory of his first lost love will allow no other to enter his tortured life.

A scene from Barflies at the Traverse, Edinburgh Photo: Richard Campbell

It is a fine, easy performance, at once slovenly yet sharply observed and completely in control. Only the migration of Henry’s accent from American to Scots drawl feels a little hesitant.

Against him, new cast member Charlene Boyd sets out that first love, Cas, magnificently. She is Fleming’s equal in snapping from inebriated devastation to controlled anger on the turn of a glass. If her creation of the further barflies of Henry’s acquaintance is not quite so detailed, with her hectoring Vicki being over caricatured, she adds a previously underplayed dominating presence.

Providing an organic soundtrack on piano and vocals, with occasional use of Henry’s typewriter clatter as syncopation, David Paul Jones provides a constant presence as Silent Dave the barkeep. Becky Minto’s design, dressing the existing bar with fittingly vulgarly named beer taps and chalkboard mottos does just enough to set it apart from the norm.

It’s not merely a celebration of the drunk, however. Director and adaptor Ben Harrison has created a story ark which goes out to the edge and makes you realise that there is only one way to jump if you are truly going to go all the way.