The October Culture Review

Once a month, we bring together reviews of Medway’s cultural highlights in a single round-up, produced exclusively for our paid supporters. This month, our team of intrepid cultural reviewers visit talks, theatre, and consumes food and drink from across our towns...

Franz & Marie
Charing Cross Theatre, London, until 14 Nov

The Charing Cross Theatre is an intimate and aptly underground setting for this modern retelling of Georg Buchner’s unfinished 1836 tragedy Woyzeck, reinvigorated with the raw indie folk of The Singing Loins’ Chris Broderick and Rob Shepherd. Haunted by his experiences in combat, and desperate to support his child with Marie, Franz undertakes menial duties for Captain Peccary and agrees to become a guinea pig in the medical experiments of cold-heartedly pseudo-scientific Dr Simian. From the outset, Brenock O’Connor uses his posture and movement to emphasise Franz’s physical frailty - the doctor has reduced his daily rations to a handful of peas. He struggles to complete push-ups and withers under the scornful admonishments of his officers and peers. The only time we see Franz truly vital and free from his demons is when he is with Marie (Jade Oswald) and their child.

The voice and ideals of Chris Broderick resound throughout the songs, from the dignity afforded to the women who do good honest work in “Weave” to the disdain for the pejorative use of “proletariat” by the medical and military authorities who inflict mental and physical torment on Franz. Broderick’s astute psychological insights are here too - the jealousy of other women means they initially reject Marie’s account of her ordeal before rallying to support her. Oswald’s solo performance on “Unravelling” is stark and plaintive, its sparsity bringing the more delicate elements of Shepherd’s musicality into relief.

Even at the highest ranks of the military on stage, the gold brocade of the uniforms is tarnished, and hems are frayed and shabby - this is a poor, grinding existence and little wonder that those who can see advantage in exploiting others rise to the top, or that the arrival of a handsome Drum Major can turn heads, or that the visiting fair is the highlight of the calendar. Hessian curtains, roughly patched together, provide the backdrop, and wooden crates facilitate all the furnishings on stage. The use of limited space is highly inventive as the actor-musicians swap instruments with head-spinning frequency, each of them showing fluent proficiency on fiddle, accordion, whistle and harp amongst so many others. The menacing military percussion, which punctuates Franz’s hallucinations, ultimately adds to the cacophonous crescendo of vocals and sound effects which signal his final descent.

Mark Meadows as Captain Peccary provides darkly absurd comic relief, bored in between bouts of action, succumbing to hypochondria and toying with the lives of his men to boost his self-importance. His performance is reminiscent of King John in Disney’s Robin Hood. Macabre humour is also elicited from the escalating torture of the experiments as the doctor and his students record Franz’s unravelling sense of self as a triumph of modern medicine.

The tragic outcome of the play is prefigured through the symbolism of the ruby necklace gifted to or imposed upon Marie by the Drum Major. The pathos of Franz’s downfall is made all the more effective by the rousing, boisterous drinking song “The Pub on the Corner“ which opens the Second Act. The sense of community is attractive, but Franz will always be on the outside of this.

There is no redemption for anyone here. Franz and Marie are united at the end, but the forces which have brought them down carry on unabated - a new recruit has been rationed the diet of peas, the Captain, Dr and Drum Major are all still in post. Not always a comfortable watch but one that leaves you with plenty to think about, especially the degradation of working men by forces outside their control and the resonating relevance of the dreadful consequences that come when a woman speaks her truth and is not believed. - Moira Mehaffey

Inaugural talk of the Pinndarian Society
12 Degrees Micropub, Rochester

In the basement of the 12 Degrees, which may or might not be in Chatham Intra, a small group of men and women have a pint of cider or ale and are there to listen to Local Authority and Bygone Kent’s Chris de Coulon-Berthoud, for this is the inaugural talk of the Pinndarian Society.

The topic of the talk is, appropriately enough, centred around what the Pinndarian Society is.