SPORT, TELEVISION & RADIO: MARTIN HOYLE - TELEVISION

By Martin Hoyle, Financial Times

Published: Aug 11, 2005

BBC2 9.00pm

Extras

Welcome to the ghastliest birthday party ever (guests' average age: 70) for dad- dominated, talentless showbiz aspirant Lizzie (29, going on 13). Rebecca Gethings' Lizzie is a lovely creation: creepy, absurd and pathetic simultaneously - something of a Gervais speciality. A wonderful supporting cast, uncomfortably accurate direction (Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant), moments of greatness.

When Harry met Sally on stage

Now on tour and coming to the Richmond Theatre later this month, the production features TV presenter and Chicago actress Gaby Roslin as a headstrong, outspoken Sally.
Jonathan Wrather (best known as Joe Carter in Coronation Street) plays the rumpled Harry with acerbic wit. As the play progresses, the chemistry between the likable pair increases to a point where it flows effortlessly.

Highlights included the phone scene after the couple's first night of passion. Harry and Sally's post-coital agony is put in hilarious contrast with the marital bliss of their best friends.
Qarie Marshall (The Bill, Spooks) fits comfortably into his role as the intellectual couch potato Jack, while Rebecca Gethings shines as the eccentric and over-the-top Marie.

By Martina Smit

Sally's best friend Marie (a spirited performance from Rebecca Gethings) is involved in a video project called 'How We Met.' These are warm and witty but they tell the same story - these are all people who have lived happily ever after.
The relationship between Marie and Harry's friend Jack (Qarie Marshall) is convincing. The whole thing moves at a decent pace and there's a memorable version of It Had To Be You provided by Jamie Callum and his brother Ben.

Contemporary Stage Company

Adaptations are an uncertain business and all too frequently seem off-key but David Graham-Young's effort is spot on and this production is a powerful and electrifying reworking of Argentinean novel El Tunel. Jamie Newall gives a magnetic, passionate and eerily convincing performance as artist Castel who is repugnantly obsessive as he tries to seduce, own and dominate the beautiful but wayward Maria, played by Rebecca Gethings. His is an absurd and frightful form of love that chillingly teeters on the psychotic before finally falling into oblivion. We are told at the start that he murders her - he simply wants one of us to understand him. The audience was transfixed and this adaptation is a certain triumph.
Hill Street Theatre
rating: 4/5

The Tunnel. UNMISSABLE Reviewer Max Blinkhorn.

Shuddering, tense and unmissable. While at an exhibition of his own paintings, Juan Pablo Castel notices a strikingly beautiful woman, Maria Iribarne, staring intensely at one particular work. He strikes up an awkward relationship with her and the die is cast. Jamie Newall's intense and powerful portrayal of the artist Castel in this dramatisation of Ernesto Sabato's novel, The Tunnel, is one of the best individual performances I have ever seen. As the plot bowls along, and scary as Castel is, he isn't able to ruffle the soft, white grace of Maria, played magically by Rebecca Gethings.
The Tunnel is wonderful. Its conclusions about Castel's state of mind are debatable and that makes the play all the more interesting.

© Max Blinkhorn 7th August 2004. Published on Edinburghguide.com