For theatre-goers of a certain age, Derek Griffiths's appearances on BBC's Playschool form a defining image of childhood. Scores of well-meaning actors drifted into the oblivion that lies beyond pre-school programming. But Griffiths was different, in a charismatic, slightly wicked fashion, like the favourite rascal uncle who slipped into the kiddies' party uninvited. Seeing him now, furtively arrayed in a rakish trilby and seedy mac as Joe Orton's incorrigibly corrupt Inspector Truscott, one can only lament that such odd geniuses will probably never be allowed to entertain our children again.
Certain actors encapsulate their greatness in a physical feature, be it their eyes, stance or the turn of a phrase; with Griffiths, it's his fingers. These amazingly extendible, India-rubber digits splay from his wrists like a pair of brilliantly trained bird-eating spiders. In one classic moment, he responds to the timid suggestion of a bribe by stealthily bearing down on Daniel Bowers's terrified Dennis, ominously flexing his terrible talons at groin level. Fixing his victim with a bug-eyed leer, he rasps, "Ow much?" in that hoarse, caustic baritone that was once so bizarrely employed in renditions of the Teddy Bear's Picnic.
Griffiths's rough diamond is the chief ornament of Braham Murray's fine production, which testifies to the director's illustrious history with this play. Murray's production of Orton's macabre farce 35 years ago was the first to incorporate cuts and tweaks made by the writer himself; it transformed Loot's fortunes from lost cause to long-lived masterpiece.
Today a harmless frolic like this would have difficulties getting itself arrested, but Orton's high-octane stagecraft is of an order that doesn't date. There is good work from Gabrielle Drake as a highly strung homicidal nurse and Colin Prokter as the befuddled bereaved. And while most actors love to talk about having died in such-and-such a play, Loot still boasts the best role ever written for a corpse.
Until June 23. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
