The programme dedication says it all: "For Alex." Writer/performer Richard Dormer and director Rachel O'Riordan created this solo show with the consent of, and as a tribute to, the great fallen Northern Irish snooker star Alex "Hurricane" Higgins, and Higgins in turn has adopted the production as an aid to his oft-threatened comeback - he turned up on opening night in Belfast and took a bow with Dormer. Keeping Higgins sweet might be part of the reason why the show feels so toothless - there are huge swathes of his life, particularly the troubled past two decades, that it simply chooses to leave out.
What they have created is a slick and well-crafted hour that exploits Dormer's exceptional performance skills. He's a showboater, just like Higgins, and O'Riordan's tightly choreographed direction shows off his ability to illustrate character through movement (lots of sashaying with a pool cue and hip-thrusting), voice, and emotionally convincing acting. The setting is a skewed white rectangle lit from within and raised about a foot above the ground. Evoking a warped snooker table, it is a runway for Dormer to walk around and creates a clear performance space within. There is deft use of suitcases, whose symbolic contents are dumped in this central space, and a musical soundtrack that time-stamps various events.
After a short prologue with Higgins as an old man in a betting shop, the storytelling begins with young Alex dreaming his way out of his Belfast housing estate, and continues with his attempted career as a jockey, the discovery of his skills with the cue, his climb up the snooker ladder, the two world championships and the two marriages. While he's most often playing Higgins, Dormer snaps in and out of other characters as well: Higgins's mother, various coaches and bosses, and - hilariously - his drinking buddy Oliver Reed. But the perspective is always that of Higgins, and this, frustratingly, does not allow for much delving into his complex psyche, nor the many fascinating paradoxes and difficulties that his career and lifestyle created.
The problems are hinted at - the alcoholism, the womanising, the violent tendencies, the tensions with the snooker authorities and the sponsors, the battle with cancer, the whole "working class hero" thing. But Higgins comes off here as the ultimate victim in denial: everything is everyone's fault but his. This may be true of the man, but it's hardly the food for involving drama.
· At the Millennium Forum, Derry (028 7126 4455), November 6-10, then touring.
