The Dragon

Take the wonderfully creative and naïve talents of TRIPOD (the Dragon), add an absolutely stupendous performance, perfectly crafted by Kim Gyngell (the Mayor), the usual stellar work from Nikki Shiels,  a great supporting cast, an adaptation by the amazing Toby Schmitz, an innovative revolve set by Anna Tregloan, and you would be justified in expecting a brilliant night of amazing theatre. Right? Wrong!

The Dragon is very much like a Terry Gilliam movie. At one moment it is breathtakingly ambitious and profoundly confronting, then at the next it becomes undisciplined, unfocussed and shambolic. It’s that inability to find consistency in style, tone, pace that is the undoing of Gilliam’s movies (Brazil is both mind-bogglingly good and totally dreadful). The Dragon suffers the same fate. Although Toby Schmitz is given credit for the adaptation, it feels as though many hands (and minds) have been all over it. Jimi Bani ( Lancelot) has a stunning and profound second act speech that couldn’t possibly have been written by the same person who gives us ‘Lancelot…..oh okay Mr Alot.’ Yes, the jokes really are that bad. And it’s hard to absorb all the philosophical points the script has to make when there are scenes with so many expletives that all meaning is lost.

At its heart The Dragon is a fable; an allegory; a piece of political satire, which was written as an indictment against the totalitarianism of post war Russia. Schmitz has updated it to be as relevant as today. It isn’t by chance there is a strong red-headed female prepared to sacrifice herself and be used for political gain by the men around her. Awesomely clever. And the sting in Shwarz’s original is that the townsfolk are quite happy to sacrifice their best to appease the Dragon (The Protector ) as long as The Dragon looks after them. Hence, they don’t welcome a knight….even one as charismatic and slightly dumb as Jimi Bani’s fabulous Lancelot…who is willing to slay the three headed Dragon. Bani appears in a fabulous suit of armour (symbolic of the masks we assume to meet other people’s expectations) which is quickly discarded after 10 minutes. I longed for its return in a different symbolic guise…perhaps to house the “Invisible” spirit of Lancelot at the end. Marion Potts clearly didn’t agree, so its point is lost entirely and it becomes just a piece of costuming. Tripod (Scott Edgar, Steven Gates and Simon Hall) are perfect in their animal guises, perfect in their songs (the show needs MORE to make it a musical…or less for a play, they haven’t found the balance yet) and amazingly good in their acting roles as the three headed Dragon, and yet the whole production leaves you feeling let down, pushed off the mountain you were invited to climb.

This is a work which is still in its gestation period and the number of genres and styles are horribly confused, but its potential is overwhelming. Please, oh please, take it off and nourish it, nurture it, let it speak to you and be borne as something very special. Then we will have a show which people will still talk about in fifty years time.

Coral Drouyn

Images: Top - 
(left to right) Steven Gates, Simon Hall and Scott Edger

,  & Lower - 
(left to right) Jimi Bani, Nikki Shiels and Tyler Coppin. Photographer: Jeff Busby.