By ALASDAIR STUART
Tony Burgess’ 1995 novel Pontypool Changes Everything, the second book in a loose trilogy that includes The Hellmouths of Bewdley (1997) and Caesarea (1999), evolves as often as the virus at its core. That quantum silverfish of a monster spread through language and violence, is one of the great modern horror threats, and it’s haunted me ever since I saw Bruce McDonald’s 2008 film version and heard Faculty of Horror’s superb dissection of it. A stage adaptation of Pontypool, which recently closed at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, Wales, adapted by Hefin Robinson and directed by Dan Philips, moves the action from Canada to the Valleys, nesting the story in that other Pontypool and solidly in the grey areas that define Wales.
This version of Grant Mazzy is a Jeremy Clarkson-style shock jock, all leather jacket and V for Vendetta-esque “YOU KNOW WHAT I BELIEVE?!” swagger and charm. He’s Irish, doubly adrift in exile from the BBC and exiled to Wales. Lloyd Hutchinson plays him like Falstaff with an agent. He’s funny, brittle, terrified by turns and makes himself the protagonist even in moments in which he is not. Hefin and Philips make endlessly clever choices, and one of the best is how Grant’s shock jock past – and the virus – combine to give him a shot at redemption which he jumps at in the second act. He’s convinced he can save the world, but only he can save the world. The show is full of moments made tense by characters’ self-absorption, and this is one of the best, as Grant begins to talk himself up as the virus begins to talk itself out of Rhiannon Briar, the show’s version of endlessly put-upon producer Sydney.
She’s played with exhausted, big jumper’ed aplomb by Victoria John, and the relationship between the characters fizzes and sparks like the Beacon FM generator. She’s deeply proud of being Welsh but doesn’t know the language. Grant is deeply proud of himself and has no reason to be. As those two lines meet, Hefin and Philips evolve the story into one that looks at the divide between countries in the U.K. and finds terror, darkness, hope and humour there.
One of the best, bleakest moments in the play sees them translate a Welsh bulletin with the final line, “Do not translate this message.” Another finds them in a stumbling half-Welsh, quarter-French, trying to work out how to survive. They commit a murder illuminated only by the arcs of the flashlight Rhi is using as a cudgel. They both cling to Grant’s last broadcast like a life raft made of rants and brief, terrified human connection.
Still, there’s so much more here. Laurel-Anne, the Iraq war veteran turned production assistant from the original is reinvented here as Meg, played by Mali O’Donnell. Funny, kind, smart, determined and compassionate, Meg is the beacon in Beacon Radio, and O’Donnell’s natural charm and skill are the grease that keeps Grant and Rhi moving – but not colliding. She’s also one of the most physically taxed members of the cast. Movement coach Lucy Glassbrook does a great job of working with the actors to build a physical vocabulary to match the verbal one that’s killing everyone in sight. Corwyn Jones also impresses massively as traffic reporter Ken Loney, as does Ioan Hefin as Doctor Harry Phillips.
The shadow of the TARDIS falls across Cardiff, and Hefin and O’Donnell do excellent work with the characters caught in its shadow. The former is a Doctor Who companion in hell. The latter is the sort of troubled, terrified scientist who stalks the halls of every B-movie, demanding to be listened to – and ignored until it’s too late. It’s too late from the moment the play starts and he is the only character that knows that.
Philips and Hefin also have a joyously nasty sense of humour. Hutchinson is very funny, and the script gives him the exact sort of comedy that’s funny until it’s cruel. The Player King of Drivetime luxuriates in language the same way the virus he’s fighting does, and this is the most emotionally complex Grant Mazzy yet. He’s intensely ambitious, completely without confidence and needs people, even as he fails to pay them the attention they need. He does, but at the last possible second each time, and we, just maybe, see him realize that. The last line of his closing monologue is originally “This isn’t the end of the world, folks. It’s just the end of the day.” Here, that’s changed to “It’s just the end of the show” – a final theatrical flourish from a man who uses them as armor and a final wink from a show that is as relentlessly entertaining as it is relentless.
Pontypool Changes Everything is the title of Burgess’ original novel, but it could be the manifesto of this fantastic production. The story’s themes fit into its new home perfectly, and the show’s exhausted, terrified compassion shines in a way that’s familiar and faceted with new meaning and context. Nothing could be more appropriate.
