THEATRE

This is a scathing satire of life in imperial Germany just before the First World War. Essentially, the uniform is more important than the man. Status is all.

Wilhelm Voigt is unemployed, has been in prison, and desperately wants a passport to return to the place of his birth. As it is, he is in effect a non-person.

The performance takes a while to warm up, and one or two of the cast seem somewhat on the surface. But I did feel for the escaped soldier who is recaptured – his eyes should take him far!

The most successful part of the show was the final three scenes, where things seem really to take off. The denouement was very enjoyable. The variations in class accents were also valuable. The relatively small stage does not make large-scale military actions easy to convey, but they did very well here with gusto.

David Fairs as Voigt was convincing and enjoyable, but he could usefully have been more of a rogue and more elaborately devious. With a farce like this exaggeration can pay dividends – some of the cast did play to this, but Voigt could have been more colourful.

The play itself does take rather a while to get where it is going, but the journey was definitely worth while.