Juggernaut of revenge

(Morning Star, Thursday 09 February 2006)

Get Carter, Byre Theatre, St Andrews

WITH a burst of strident period music, Red Shift's production of Get Carter haemorrhages onto the stage, all bloody and grimy and full of despair.

Better known as the 1971 film starring Michael Caine in his most iconic of roles than from the 1970 novel Jack's Return Home by Ted Lewis, productions of Get Carter will forever be held up against Caine's defining celluloid interpretation.

Vicious gangster Jack Carter (Jack Lord) travels from London back to his childhood home in a northern steel town for his brother's funeral.

Suspecting that his death was not an accident, Carter sets out to find the culprits, weaving a heady and often violent path through the booze and fag-soaked north, finding momentary pleasure with tawdry sexual encounters.

Lord asserts himself early on in a blackly comic interchange with Daniel Copeland's Gerald Fletcher.

His Carter is a juggernaut of revenge, unstoppable until his brother's killers are brought to rough justice. He shines here as the punisher - remorseless and unforgiving but also brash and swaggering - and smart enough to watch his own back.

The female roles played by Sally Orrock and Angela Ward are uniquely strong, each woman inhabiting three distinctly separate characters.

This is a play full of strength and venom, where even the set is deceptively complex.

The only letdown is a soundtrack populated with a raft of recognisable hits so staccato in their appearance as to resemble a round of guess the intro. Recommended anyway.