Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Joseph England, Simon Hedger, Jack Quarton, Olivia Meguer, Max Rubin, Modou Bah, Hannah Gover, Teresa O’Brien.

There are some works that are too good to keep hidden from those that would demean and diminish them. Some works may need to be spirited away in case certain people take offence and see the satire as a personal attack. However those in the very highest of offices do sometimes need reminding that they are they to serve the people, not the other way round. No matter how long it takes to get a novel published or someone to take it on as, what can only be described as riveting, in a theatre setting, at some point the message will get through, such is the fate of Mikhail Bulgakov’s work, The Master and Margarita.

The art of balancing good and evil, trickery and what the eyes tell us they are seeing is captured fully   in a play that might have never been performed at all if a certain manuscript was to fall into the wrong hands in an era of Soviet suppression and had been susceptible to fire is more than enough to start enjoying what is an unabashed super way of spending a couple of hours. When added to the direction that was expertly provided, a script, that was admittedly shaved, which lived up to any high expectations that may have followed in tandem in to the Unity Theatre space and a cast that was not only top of its game but showed just how interesting the imagery associated with farce, the fantastic and of course pure satire can be.

The cast was on such good form, so riven with extrovert zeal that at times it was enough to be mesmerised by the acting approach by the entire ensemble. In particular Max Rubin who as both the Black Magic artist Woland and the inspired Stepanovich gave such a commanding acting display of great depth, the superb Olivia Meguer who excelled in scrupulous fashion as Margarita, the outstanding Joseph England as The Master and the exceptional talent of Teresa O’Brien who played almost every other part that was going and who didn’t let a moments facial malfunction faze her, in true style she performed with grace and a charming honour.

The Master and Margarita may well be complex; it may well take the audience down roads that they never once envisioned ever going down upon and at all times questioning their own grip on reality but as the play came to its climax there can’t have been anybody who was left mystified by it. The play may be complex, riveting and enjoyable though it certainly was and one that was carried out with complete and utter assuredness.

In the end, all you are left with is surely some sympathy for the Devil.

Ian D. Hall