Blue/Orange at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre

It seemed to be a strange choice for Aylesbury, especially as the theatre rarely performs such plays . But I guess we are lucky that the theatre is run by The Ambassador Theatre Group, so we might see more plays that are put by their Theatre Royal Brighton Productions. Blue/Orange is an award winning drama by Joe Penhall about mental illness originally performed in 2000. It is an intelligent and challenging play that has many interesting things to say about the psychiatric profession and it's ideology.

Christopher is an ambiguous character. he has been sectioned by the police for the standard 28 days, and he is on the eve of his departure from his secure hospital. Bruce, his young doctor, is worried about him leaving (why so late? and how come someone in their first year as a qualified doctor has this responsibility?). Bruce's superior is Robert, the Senior Consultant. He cannot see why Christopher should not leave and constantly, with increasing frustration, dismisses all Bruce's increasingly angry efforts to demonstrate why this should not happen.

The dialogue is sometimes frantic, sometimes calm and occasionally very funny. The acting is first rate, led by a wonderfully mature performance from the experienced Richard Bathurst (currently becoming involved with one of the sisters in Downton Abbey). Gerard McCarthy is suitably loud and edgy as Bruce, and Oliver Wilson is terrific as Christopher. The director Christopher Luscombe makes sense of the whole thing.

There was one scene which really gets Bruce into trouble. He repeats the words "uppity nigger" back to Christopher. Amazingly, this was on the same day as John Terry was found guilty by the FA of repeating similar words to Anton Ferdinand. Incredible.