Good Dog by Arinzé Kene 19min online version- Youtube
Adapted for screen by Natalie Ibu
Based on the stage production of Good Dog, produced by tiata fahodzi and Watford Palace Theatre
Reviewer: Kate Herbert 1 October 2020
Stars: ****
This 19-minute version of the stage play, Good Dog, by Arinzé Kene, has a pulsating, relentless rhythm that follows a young boy’s emotional journey in a public housing tower block in England.
Anton Cross, irected by Natalie Ibu and Andrew Gillman, plays the Boy who is the narrator and subject of the stories he relates about his life and his neighbours on a public housing estate.
Cross is a magnetic presence as he talks with open-eyed honesty direct to camera, addressing his absent audience intimately. We follow him as he leads us up tower block stairs, onto balconies, into stores and down lanes where he is followed by the estate bullies.
The Boy introduces us to Trevor Senior, the overworked and addled father who spends his exhausted waking hours worrying that his son, Trevor Junior, a contemporary of the Boy, will end up with the same work-roughened palms as his father.
We then follow the Boy to the local store, run by Ghandi, described as a ‘a 51-year old boy’, who struggles to manage the ‘What What’ Girl who shoplifts, and her What What mum who threatens to get all her What What pals to boycott Ghandi’s shop.
The key allegorical tale that the Boy relates is a revealing and familiar story about Little Dog who is terrified and cowed by Big Dog. Big Dog barks all day through the fence terrorising Little Dog who dashes whimpering inside as soon as her owner returns. She is afraid of her own big tail.
The 'little dog' harbours her fear and revenge until she grows to a size that matches her tail and viciously savages 'big dog'.
This allegory reminds us that inhospitable environments and relentless abuse breed fear that can grow into violence and rage. All rules have no meaning when one has tried to be a Good Dog all one’s life, only to find that those rules don't apply to other who consider themselves to be Big Dogs.
Big Dog is a poignant, topical piece that is impeccably performed by Cross and would be a treat to view in its full two and a half hours in the theatre.
By Kate Herbert
Directed by Andrew Gillman & Natalie Ibu
Adapted for screen Natalie Ibu
Music Michael Assante
CAST
Boy -Anton Cross
Young Boy -Sammy Kamara
Trevor Senior -Vinta Morgan
Trevor Junior -Amerjit Deu
What What Girl -Lara Vira
What What Mum --Maria Alexe
Teenage Boy Edward Kagutuzi
Desmon -Calvin Cawood
Massive Martin -Alex Radosavljevic
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