Red Tap/Blue Tiger @ Assembly Roxy

Albion Company’s Red Tap/Blue Tiger begins baldly, with main character Norton just having beaten his mother into a coma and seething over the news that the man who helped raise him is not his real father. It fails to live up to the audience’s expectations though, for its brutality is alienating rather than engaging and most of the performers are rather unconvincing.

The piece portrays the results of a deprived upbringing, but it lacks insight. It seems to state that a difficult childhood naturally produces a violent lunatic young adult with oddly dedicated friends. When Norton’s friend delves into the past to invoke an abusive father figure as a reason for Norton’s current behaviour, the memories sound strained rather than enlightening. His girlfriend’s reasons for staying by his side and wanting his child remain equally mysterious.

At times, the play can be an actively unpleasant experience, not because it has the viewer feel for the characters’ trials or because they relate to one’s own life, but because there is a lot of puzzlingly gratuitous violence and endless shouting. It is to Ed Firth’s credit that main character Norton is a truly menacing: a convincingly unhinged presence who offers brief moments of comic relief between the otherwise unrelentingly heavy drama.