Picture courtesy of everymanplayhouse.com

Originally published by L.S. Media. March 17th 2011.Cast: Michelle Butterly, David Carlyle, Helen Carter, Stephen Fletcher, Con O’Neill, Samantha Robinson, Jess Schofield, Alan Stocks.

Dead Heavy Fantastic is the new exciting play by Robert Farquar, that deals with the subject of a world rarely seen by many who live in Liverpool but who will have heard gory tales of hedonism, the party culture, drugs and of out of place postmen.

With many writing credits to his name, Robert’s take on the underbelly of night life culture is actually what it is, Dead Heavy and utterly Fantastic. With no stone left unturned in the pursuit of a good gag or characters with a human depth to them, Robert has done the city proud by shining a small torch underneath the lives of those that live for the party weekend and watching what scuttles around underneath that stone.

The story centre’s around postman and newly divorced father Frank, played with his usual comic brilliance by Liverpool regular Alan Stocks, and the characters he meets on a typical Friday night in the doorways and discos of Liverpool.

An ill judged meeting with a young woman, Cindy, on the internet leads Frank into a world he would never have normally ventured into. Along the way Frank meets the collective individuals who make up the city’s beating, alternative heart including Vince, entrepreneur and wannabe big shot, seedy accountant Graham and their friends who beguile and confuse Frank with an over sensory perception on their life.

Joining Alan Stocks on stage is the versatile actor Stephen Fletcher whose performances in theatres in Liverpool during the last year have won him rave reviews and continues to impress as he works alongside Alan, the much loved Con O’Neill, making a welcome return to the Liverpool stage and the magnificent Michelle Butterly as Maureen whose voice of reason and real object of Frank’s life, turns up during the ill advised night out and whose words at the end give comfort and hope to Frank.

There may be some that would rather hide the light that’s been shone on the underbelly of Liverpool nightlife so dramatically and informally, quoting reams of paper that it shows the city in a bad light, however this play could well be one of the definitive and important plays to have come to the stage of this city in the last ten years.

Ian D. Hall