review theatre: Lead us into temptation | Old Red Lion | HE snorts coke, shoots smack and treats women like dirt. Shock horror, he even smokes cigarettes.

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The Review - THEATRE by JOSH LOEB
Published: 29 May 2008

Lead us into Temptation at the Old Red Lion

Camden theatre| Old Red Lion | review| Finch (Christopher Hanvey, is partly based on Kurt Cobain.

THE LONG ROAD
Soho Theatre

HE snorts coke, shoots smack and treats women like dirt.
Shock horror, he even smokes cigarettes.
His name is Jackie Finch. He is a young rock star and an idiot – and a rather unfortunate subject for a play.
Finch (Christopher Hanvey, pictured) is partly based on Kurt Cobain. Unlike Cobain’s music, which was angry in a controlled and pleasing way, the anger in this play is everywhere and seems to lead nowhere.
The problem is satire, and with satire there is always a danger of the play becoming the thing it seeks to knock down.
Here, the thing being criticised is the self- indulgence of Finch and his cohorts. His egotism is well conveyed, perhaps too well, for one wonders why it was necessary to shower us with quite so much of it quite so unsubtly. The rebellion is overdone. When every other word is a swear word it can get tiresome.
Finch’s manager, Barbara, wants him to “sell out” and “write something catchy”. His girlfriend Helena is possibly schizophrenic. The latter has the best lines, raunchily delivered by Jessica Hrabowsky. In all, the script turns up a few gems, as when Finch describes his diabolical leanings as the “far right dictatorship that breathes through me”.
Perhaps as a result of all the junk in his veins, Finch at times believes he is Jesus reincarnate. His condition evokes no pity, only disgust of an unconstructive kind.
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