Confessions of a Justified Sinner @ Queen's Hall, 21 Aug
Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner belongs at The Queen's Hall – star George Anton seems to agree as he fills the huge space with not only his own presence, but that of Paul Bright himself, of James Hogg and of Robert Colwen
Feeling almost like the greatest history lecture you could ever attend, Confessions is all at once a classical performance and a complete departure from what you might expect on stage, paying homage through its incredibly meta narrative to Paul Bright’s original episodes and the novel itself. The use of interviews on the big screen are reminiscent of BBC arts documentaries, but the play goes so much deeper than that into the psyche of the text and of the plays.
Anton fumbles his lines at one stage – 'I did my vocal warm up' – and it is a marvel that he does not trip over himself more often, thanks to the speed and passion with which he delivers information. He moves seamlessly between himself as narrator, as curator, as he is now, as he was then and into Bright’s own words and journals. One particular scene in which he reads a speech or poem of Bright’s over impassioned but silent video of the man himself strikes almost perfect balance.
This performance is a play about plays and those who make them, about literature and falling in love with your art, and the dark places that can lead to. It understands theatre like maybe no other work.
Paul Bright's Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Queen's Hall, run ended.