Those old enough to recall the glory days of Saturday-afternoon wrestling on TV will know it’s an entertainment that has as many heroes and villains, setpieces and well-worn scenarios as any Victorian melodrama. There are rumours that Simon Cowell is keen to see the return of wrestling to the primetime TV schedules, but in some parts of the country it’s never gone away as a live entertainment.
Mike Stone’s debut play, staged largely within a wrestling ring with all the gaudy razzmatazz and mock heroics of a live bout, takes place in Scotland, where promoter Stairs (Nick Karimi) is always keen to up the level of real violence if it ups the numbers prepared to pay to see stars like Whiplash Mary (Zoe Hunter) and Wee Man (Stuart Ryan) on the ropes. Into this circus comes Lardo (Daniel Buckley), a clownish, overweight youngster who was bullied at school. He thinks he can make all his dreams come true if he can persuade Stairs to sign him for Tartan Wrestling Madness. It swiftly becomes clear that more than one person is going to get hurt.
Stone’s plotting and character development is often as baggy as Lardo’s leotard. But there’s some sparky writing, and Finn Caldwell’s staging, which includes some terrifically entertaining physical setpieces from wrestling director Henry Devas, captures some of the vitality of a real bout and the shabbiness and shams, emotional lies, double-dealings and real bruises that lie behind the showbiz-style histrionics.
The boxing or wrestling ring is an overworked metaphor in the theatre, but here it’s the real thing that’s under scrutiny, and the raggedness of play and production only add to the sense that you are peeping into a closed, marginal world, normally hidden from view. Lots of swaggering fun, plenty of tension and full of potential for development.
• Until 29 March. Box office: 0844 412 4307. Venue: Old Red Lion, London.
