REVIEW: TRIPLE THREAT by Andrew Cartmel at Drayton Arms 1 - 12 October 2024

‘two out of three ain’t bad’ ★★★

Three plays for the price of one in Andrew Cartmel’s new show at the Drayton Arms. Linked, loosely, each puts three actors in a situation where the threat arising is one of those we often feel unable to control – climate change, the economy, politics. As is often the way in such portmanteau shows there are two hits and a miss, with the good fortune, or directorial choice, to open and close with the stronger plays, sandwiching the less robust filler between.

The opener, Dead Man’s Switch, finds a loving father (James Vaughan) worrying that his daughter (Kelsey Short) is missing out on enjoying life because of her fear that climate change and the actions of his generation will destroy her future. Live for today is more or less his message, and, for all that this is not unfamiliar as a set-up, there’s a real tenderness in the relationship the actors create between the two. The play then spins off into melodramatic and not entirely convincing territory, but sets up a huge moral conflict for the Dad, satisfyingly resolved.

To Downing Street next for The Magical Money Tree, and a young image consultant (Short) wants to convince a complacent Prime Minister (Vaughan) to mind his economic language. Unfortunately, from that promising premise, the play loses dramatic focus in favour of a very long, static, didactic economics lesson of the questionable accuracy one might get if taught by a supply teacher qualified in chemistry. Cartmel has a writer’s tic noticeable in all three plays where characters repeat things back at each other (We came off the Gold Standard in 1931. We came off the Gold Standard in 1931? Yes, we came off the Gold Standard in 1931), which becomes particularly noticeable as the protagonists and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Ceejay Sergeant) repetitively rattle through quantitative easing, inflation, taxation, austerity. It’s the longest of the trio, and it certainly feels it. The interest rate collapses pretty swiftly.

And revives again as soon as the final play, Polling Day, gets under way. The best of the three gives Sergeant her meatiest role as a frustrated mother who’s been locked in the house all day so unable to vote on polling day. Whether her husband (Vaughan) or daughter (Short) did the locking in deliberately to prevent her casting her conspiracy-theorist’s vote gives rise to some excellent comedy, and her facial contortions as she tries to demonstrate that three points don’t always have to make a triangle are a highlight. Perhaps because it remains the most grounded in reality, perhaps because (as with the opener) the three actors achieve both the frustration and the genuine tenderness of the family relationships, this one’s the pick of the bunch.

So, something of a curate’s egg, but much to enjoy either side of the economics lecture, and, in the imperishable words of Meat Loaf, two out of three ain’t bad.

TRIPLE THREAT by Andrew Cartmel, directed by Jennie Eastop at Drayton Arms 1 October to 12 October 2024

Box Office: https://www.thedraytonarmstheatre.co.uk/triple-threat

Reviewer: David Weir’s plays include Confessional (Oran Mor, Glasgow), Better Together (Jack Studio, London). Those and others performed across Scotland, Wales and England, and in Australia, Canada, South Korea, Switzerland and Belgium. Awards include Write Now Festival prize, Constance Cox award, SCDA best depiction of Scottish life, and twice Bruntwood longlisted.