BWW Reviews: THE BEAR, Ovalhouse, May 23 2013

Bears then? A cuddly toy, much loved, all warm furry cuddles and now one eye missing and on Antiques Roadshow, as a third generation wonder how much the one constant in a family's changing world should be insured for. Or random killer, armed with claw and tooth with immense size and strength - a force of nature to be assuaged or avoided.

Some of those contradictions are explored in The Bear, a true (or trueish) story told by Angela Clerkin about the last case she ever took as a solicitor's clerk in North London. In a black box set with an ingenious perspex open-sided cube in its centre, a story of murder unfolds, peppered by Raymond Chandleresque voiceovers, Irish dancing, songs and, yes, people dressed as bears.

While Ms Clerkin holds the show together, as she discovers as much about herself as the case, Guy Dartnell, a big er... bear of a man himself, has enormous fun playing everyone else, from the hallucinating accused to a careerist barrister via a hilarious portrait of Ms Clerkin's salt-of-the-earth Irish Aunt. He gets the best moment in a show with plenty of set-pieces to applaud, belting out a song that bemoans the murders pinned on bears - "I didn't do it!" the bears cry, going for the Teddy bear vote after some grisly, grizzly goings-on.

What stops the show from being a set of cabaret turns - and both actors are more than capable of delivering a funny and varied cabaret - is the strength of the story. There's suspense even if we've a pretty good idea what happened and we're keen to know more about Ms Clerkin's outwardly placid personality in the last 20 minutes as the story's focus shifts. At nearly an hour and a half all-through, it's just about at the limit of a two-hander and, if the ending doesn't quite twist like a dancing bear, it gives us plenty to think about when we look at people who seem as lovable as a teddy, as full of bonhomie as Yogi, but, unseen, inside them, lurks a bear of a different colour.

The Bear continues at Ovalhouse until 8 June.

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