BWW Reviews: GHOST FROM A PERFECT PLACE, Arcola Theatre, September 15 2014

Old Mrs Sparks (East End mother and "Salt of the Earth" - yes, really) chats of the 60s heydays with Travis Flood, local gangster back on his old manor for the first time since being given a new identity in a village outside Bolton. They talk. Travis enjoys being back amongst his own and feeling the old "respect" again, but his mind is on Rio, Mrs Sparks' granddaughter, wildchild and leader of a girl gang who build fires and terrorise local men.

Twenty years ago, Philip Ridley's Ghost From A Perfect Place (continuing at the Arcola Theatre until 11 October) was something of a sensation, dividing opinion, provoking walkouts and ushering in an in-yer-face theatre that was something of a companion to music's Britpop. Since then, we've had the Saw and Hostel franchises in cinemas and on your TV to watch over supper and girl gang exposés featuring almost as often as Beyonce in the Daily Mail - so the shock has become something of a shrug.

Shorn of the outrage, does the drama stand up? There's a pleasant, if awfully familiar, two-hander in Act One between Sheila Reid (Mrs Sparks) and Michael Feast (Travis Flood), who get plenty of laughs but also manage to contrast and compare the East End's criminal underworld of the 60s and the 90s without once mentioning race or drugs. So far, so "What's all the fuss about?" Act Two is altogether darker, a reprise of the "Cop and Michael Madsen" scene from Reservoir Dogs, with the shrieking girls (Florence Hall, Scarlett Brookes and Rachel Redford) as three Ms Blondes, with knives in hand and ears and eyes as targets. It drags. It takes an awfully long time to reach a conclusion everyone can see from the moment Rio's mother's fate was described.

If the those main themes of 1994 are simply won out in 2014, the girls' twisted religious philosophising dressed up as justification for nihilstic violence, is very much up to date, with ISIL's hideous snuff videos just a couple of clicks away from you right now. Of course, in those more innocent days, internet technology was not even dreamt of, and the bonkers religions were more often found in the cults of David Koresh or Jimmy Jones rather than as participants in asymmetric quasi-warfare.

There's an update, rather than a revival, of this play that might be very interesting indeed. But, for all the fine efforts of an excellent cast, this play feels dated and gratutitously unpleasant - and, regrettably, just not interesting enough.

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