Timeout Feb 25th - March 3rd 2004

Burke and Hare
Brockley Jack Theatre


"Williams Burke and Hare were the nineteenth-century body snatchers who famously got tired of digging up graves, and decided to create their own supply of recently deceased corpses to sell to medical science. The theatre, of course, loves a good murderer, and Terry Newman turns these two into a cherishable comic double act: Burke the unsophisticated giant with a kind heart, and Hare the conniving mastermind. The play's basic gag is Hare's brutal application of his commercial instincts to the job in hand. The talk of business plans, expansion and - when he eventually shops his colleague in order to escape execution - 'shedding of assets'.

There is plenty of fine comic writing her, ably and swiftly performed by Rob Crouch and Jonathan Clarkson as B and H respectively. The actors are reprising roles they took in the play's premiere in Edinburgh last year, which is in fact, home of the original murders. Gemma Sessions' revival is certainly accomplished, but it can't mask an element of glibness in Newman's script. It's a bit unfair to pass off the first few murders as hearty,Baldrick-like cunning plans, and then yank fiercely on the heartstrings when it is the turn of local simpleton Daft Jamie to be 'resurrected'. More successful is the pompous speech of Dr Knox - their principle client - eulogising the onward march of enlightenment that the corpses help to fuel. Food for thought, wherever you stand on, for instance, animal testing or embryology"

Jonathan Gibbs