GIVEN the importance of the debate about identity cards and civil liberties in current British politics, it's surprising that the 2008 Fringe doesn't boast more shows like this thoroughly enjoyable play from Kali Theatre of London. It is set in the W
est Midlands, in a dystopian British future when citizens need their identity cards in order to exist at all; a lost card means the loss of everything, and probable exile to Coventry, now designated an outdoor prison for all those who can't prove who they are.
Sayan Kent's play is jokey but lively, built around the story of what happens when the disaffected wife of an eminent businessman (Sakuntala Ramanee) loses her card, and finds her identity taken over by a nice bloke called Enoch, whose wife has just stolen his identity in order to bestow it on a fireman she fancies. There's also a senior lady policeman with a dramatic back-story, and a mysterious freedom campaigner called Tom Paine, whose card records that he's over 200 years old.
This is a good old-fashioned piece of wacky English radicalism, performed with occasional awkwardness but plenty of enthusiasm by a five-strong cast. It is presented – in Janet Steel's brisk production – with the help of some fine video backdrops of bourgeois interiors and city squalor, and the flickering electronic screens that dominate the characters' lives.
Until 25 August. Today 4:45pm.
The full article contains 252 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
