Originally published by L.S. Media. April 15th 2012.

L.S. Media Rating *****

Cast: David Tennant, Lucy Cohu, Mark Bonnar, Sara Stewart, Richard McCabe, Saskia Reeves, Richard Lintern, Darrell D’ Silva.

Will Self’s half hour play The Minor Character kicked off a new season of performances for the Sky Arts channel and on the basis of the first offering, home grown drama still has a place for all. Invoking memories of the much loved B.B.C’s Play for the Day, Will Self penned a play that is both enjoyable, slightly psychologically disturbing and one that needs to be watched more than once just to catch every nuance of David Tennant’s sparkling delivery and interaction with the rest of this perfect cast.

The greatest compliment to any writer’s work is to find that people will want to dissect and discuss what the play actually means and in The Minor Character, it has the feel of a piece that’s well written and  observed plus the odd moment that viewers will question exactly what they have just seen. It surely will become a piece of work that becomes part of the national syllabus or University work in years to come, whether Will Self relishes that, is also up for open debate.

The Minor Character sees David Tennant play Will, a man who watches and comments on a time on a group of friends, their lives, their passions and loves, sometimes with each other and the fractured paths they lead. Told from the comfort of a distressingly white and starkly furnished home, Tennant’s narrative is keenly felt throughout.  It even at times appears to be as disjointed as the mirroring of conversations and people’s reactions to what he witnesses at various parties and gatherings where the friends meet up; the narrative is not all that it seems, or even what Will even believes himself.

There is the fission of sexual tension between Tennant, the artist who sees all and the viewer who he invites to become a sort of voyeur of all that he sees. The moment where the excellent Saskia Reeves as Teddy Brookman invites Will to see the scars of her mastectomy is both powerful and disturbing. The viewer is left in doubt whether this actually happens and it’s testament to Will Self’s incredible writing the genius of Tennant’s acting that leaves the viewer hanging on the merest moment of suggestion.

At the end the viewer is left asking, who exactly is the minor character and will realise that as in life where any human being who finds themselves within a disparate and wide range of friends finds, Will, as well as ourselves, are nothing more than fringe players in a play.

The Minor Character is the first play of the series and it leaves an extremely high bench mark to match.

Ian D. Hall