Two swords are strategically placed on either side of the stage in Philip Braithwaite’s latest play Shining Armour. Like Chekhov’s gun, they indicate that a fight is likely to occur at some point. A confrontation, rather than a sword fight, between the two protagonists both wielding swords does occur but the real fight in this play is not a physical one but a moral one.

Martin is a quietly spoken "regular sort of guy" who lives his real life away from the advertising agency he works for by playing medieval games in The Camelot Club. He is given the nickname Merlin by his friends and he takes part in pageants and he clearly wants to live by the chivalric code and make it relevant in the 21st century.

His opportunity comes when he is set up with a date by his friends. Her name is Stacey, a bored amiable secretary who has a thoroughly unpleasant boyfriend, Kevin, who treats her like dirt and encourages her to be a part-time escort.

They fall in love but once the quiet, reserved Martin realizes her relationship with Kevin is an abusive one he, metaphorically speaking, gets on his white charger and attempts to rescue her. I cannot reveal how he finally defeats the obnoxious Kevin but the Arthurian world is shown to be as morally deficient as the contemporary one.

Gene Alexander, stepping into the long role of Martin at very short notice, underplays effectively the decent man, the quiet dependable hero, and he is beautifully contrasted with Hollie Weir who gives a fine performance as the capricious Stacey. Oliver Cox makes the villain’s role unpleasantly realistic rather than emblematic which is in keeping with restrained ‘heroics’ of Martin, while Barry Lakeman can do little with the strangely written role of Martin’s boss.

Shining Armour is a quiet, thoughtful play but it needs to get something of the excitement, energy and charge from the tournaments that Martin attends to fully engage an audience.

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The Arthurian legend of knights fighting to defend the defenceless and damsels in distress seems quaint in this day in age, where most are out for number one.  Philip Braithwaite brings us a modern day knight in Shining Armour, a gentle man who lives to help others, asking nothing in return.
Braithwaite exposes his characters’ trigger points not only to the audience but to those around them who are all too ready to push them.  And those who seem most collected tend to be those with the most potential to explode.

Martin (played so genuinely by director Gene Alexander, who does a splendid job in both roles) is pushed beyond breaking point.  It’s love, of course, which derails our knight. He meets Stacey (a perfectly pitched performance by Hollie Weir) and while the world, and she herself, see her as flakey, to him she’s enchanting. 

Paralleling the Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere threesome, the young woman is torn between her past love – the definitely and scarily flaky and violent poet Kevin (played with unnerving skill by Oliver Cox) – and the new love.  We all know which one she should choose, but this damsel is a mess, and she messes up the lives of those who care for her.

As a study of human psychology, it’s fascinating.  Even the motivation of Martin’s boss Graham (performed with gusto by Barry Lakeman) is interesting, his attitude to women coloured by his own appetites, but he clearly cares for his gentle young worker.

As a play it’s both dramatic and not over-hyped, in fact it’s the opposite, positively low key, but tense when called for.  I’d rate this as one of Braithwaite’s most mature and engaging works, and that says a lot.

Excellent sound too by James Dunlop, complementing Daniel Williams’ simple but effective set design.
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Jesus saved Mary Magdalene, Don Quixote was there for Dulcinea so why not Martin for Stacey?

Martin, who works as a researcher for an advertising agency, belongs to the Camelot Club and – seeking redemption for a perceived past failure – he wants to embody the virtues of Lancelot, Merlin, et al. Stacey, a bored and underpaid secretary, is trying to get ahead with a bit of escort work on the side, at the behest of her on-again / off-again boyfriend Kevin.

But it is at the behest of Martin’s workmates that Stacey comes into his life. And once he twigs to her situation, he just wants to protect her because that’s the kind of man he is, whereas Kevin is the total opposite; a misogynistic user and abuser. Except in this day and age, how does a bloke go about being a knight in shining armour? How exactly does he vanquish the foe within the accepted lore and law of this land?

Playwright Philip Braithwaite explores this Quixotic quest through a series of well-wrought scenes that finally pit Martin against Kevin, first in a sword fight then in a wilful act that sidesteps the law by …

SPOILER WARNING
I have to say this because it was my instant reaction when it happened: allowing an extremely drunk guy to drive off, presumably on to a public road, is just as – if not more – likely to demolish innocent lives as it is that of the drunkard in question. This tarnishes the ingenuity of making Kevin his own executioner.
SPOILER WARNING ENDS

I also have to note that the director, Ukranian-born and New York-trained Gene Alexander, had to take over the role of Martin at the last minute due to illness (hence delaying the opening by a week). And, probably wisely, he does not attempt a Kiwi accent. This had the presumably unintended result of making the story’s protector/saviour hail from ‘elsewhere’ with an American accent. And given the (unexplored) prospect of ‘collateral damage’ in the process of quelling evil and bringing justice to the world (which will only make sense if you’ve read the spoiler, sorry), that American accent could add value.

Alexander plays Martin as quietly spoken and introspective with a fluency that is very compelling, except when nothing provokes him out of that mode it becomes quite spooky – which may, again, have allegorical connotations (like George W Bush waning alyrical in John Wayne tones while the real world disintegrates).

Holly Weir’s Stacey is multi-facetted and volatile, alternately seductive and vulnerable, needy and aggressive, desperate and her own worst enemy: a beautifully modulated performance, if your can say that about a terminally dysfunctional character. The course of the Martin/Stacey relationship is expertly crafted both in the writing and in the playing.

As the force of evil, Oliver Cox makes a memorable artefact out of total fuckup and fuckwit, Kevin. His flipsides are fascinating: weedling and aggressive; sentimental and gross; loving and violent. A flawed gem.

Given the well-wrought complexity of these three characters I can only assume something has gone awry in the realisation of Martin’s boss Graham (Barry Lakeman), also involved in the Camelot Club. Supposedly a mentor to Martin, both at work and in their knightly pursuits, I assume his sleazy touching – supposed to be caring – of Stacey, is intended to show him up as a fake. But in performance he is so erratic, uncentred and phoney it stretches credibility that Martin, or anybody, could give him any credence at all.

That aside, as with Braithwaite’s Hail To The Thief, there is much to chew on and ponder but the punchline raises more questions than it answers. Perhaps that’s the nature of his work in this phase. Meanwhile Shining Armour offers a recognisable, provocative and finally thought-provoking 75 minutes.
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