Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Adam Nicholls, Callum Forbes.
We are tied by fortune, fate and quite often the feeling of the replacement family in the act of choosing friends, a random moment shared that leads to decades of hanging around together, perhaps. Be it pals, friends, buddies, chum or even as comrades or companion, time is there to remind us that the friendship is not just about the good times, but looking out for each other when the days verge on the edge of darkness, that we all need to look out for The Muckers!
The Muckers! the seventh show from the award winning, and absolutely excellent Naughty Corner Productions, is a glorious affair written by and performed by Adam Nicholls and Callum Forbes and one that has a dark twist of middle age menace running through its genuinely outrageously funny core.
The bond between two men is sometimes born out of frustration with the way they see the world, how they communicate their feelings about each other and the state of the nation, without really ever saying anything. Two men called Dave, resoundingly English, everyone they know is called Dave and they want their country back, but they are quite happy to skip over the fact that life has dealt each of them a bad hand of cards to start with, no so much racist, but completely ignorant of the way the world works.
It is though in the unspoken that the play captures the attention, the looks passed between both Mr. Nicholls and Mr. Forbes, the harmony and synchronicity of their impassioned reminisce of days since they first met and a moment that passed into the ether, unspoken since, these are the friends we choose, an echo perhaps of our opinions but one that can surprise us from time to time, even in the routine of pub, pints and curry.
You would not expect anything else other than a clever, well thought out production from Naughty Corner, The Muckers! lives up to that high bench mark, a play with stamina, of understanding the male bond right down to its awkwardness and quite often fear of the moment of heterosexual intimacy, The Muckers! is a play deserving of the Naughty Corner Productions stamp.
Naughty Corners Productions bring Bob The Russian to the Unity Theatre today through till Saturday 30th June.
Ian D. Hall