FUEL FESTIVAL 2010

Not content with serving as the Butler in the eponymous other show by Joe Bennett in this Fuel festival, Tom Trevella follows it with this small delicacy for dessert: Stuck Up the Alley, by the same author.

Based on a true incident in which a Lyttleton barman was accidentally locked in an alley and left there all night, Bennett uses it as a vehicle to reflect, humorously, about loneliness and solitary confinement. After all, remarks Tom – the actor and the character – what do we know about being alone; “Who sees us when we are alone? No-one.”  

So the alley, for that night, becomes Tom’s world: eight yards long, bound by gates and doors locked from the outside, including the one that snibbed shut when he huffed out his bag of empties to put in the green bin.

As theatre this entertaining monologue is a gift for an actor, employing a tight, imaginative set that recreates the scene: locked doors, bare walls, bins, crates, very useful folded cardboard boxes , handy for sleeping on.

After a slightly cold start, Trevella is engaging and endearing, with a rich voice and great sense of pace and pause which add much to the humour of the piece.

Bennett, being above all a columnist, writes the play as a column, expanding a premise into more and more fanciful ideas. At around 45 minutes long, it’s a little short on tension and climax.
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