Benny tries to evade death yet again, but that’s tricky when the father of your child is one of the galaxy’s most wanted criminals.
Benny tries to evade death yet again, but that’s tricky when the father of your child is one of the galaxy’s most wanted criminals.
Glory Days
Glory Days starts off by correcting some people may have scene as a failing of the last series. Jettisoning much of the series extended cast worked in terms of focusing on the characters Bernice and Peter, and provided four extremely good releases, but it wasn’t a state of affairs that could continue indefinitely. It would be unfair to say that bringing some much loved characters back is Glory Days greatest strength, but right from the first moment where Bernice and Bev clap eyes on each other, its immediately apparent your in for something special.
The play works like a lot of stylised crime drama, with a team of competent characters working a ‘job’, each with a role to play. The events of the heist work out like a game, with every action on both sides calculated, each revelation planted down as the characters and the bank work towards checkmate. This gives us some lovely extended periods of dialogue with characters talking about ‘widgets’, ‘doohickeys’, and the ‘thing with the stuff’. In the short space of time it would struggle to work as well as it does without having instantly recognisable characters the listener could latch onto, so in that sense the return of Bev, Adrian, and ‘sort-of’ Braxiatel works wonders.
But these aren’t the same characters we knew, and they’ve not been thrust back just to show them off. It’s a credit to the range that all these characters have moved forwards and still have something different to show off. Harry Myers and Louise Falkner are on fine form as one of the best double acts we’ve seen for some time.
But in the end the most striking thing about the play is the way it dances around the subject of Irving Braxiatel, which hasn’t been touched for over a year. Clear answers are given about what Bernice does and doesn’t know about her former employer, and although the characters never meet, Miles Richardson’s performance and return to the range is spine tingling. The stakes are raised for future meetings, be assured.
But Glory Days has a lot going for it as a stand alone release. Its slick, polished, witty and moves quickly with an unmistakable confidence. It features some genuinely touching character moments, whether you’re familiar with Bev and Adrian’s history, and some tense moments. The idea of a bank staffed entirely by Braxiatel clones is worth the admission price alone. Highly recommended.
9 / 10