And that has to do with queens of a different pedigree, and another kind of rejection.Psychologically, this is one of the strongest Budds I can recall, and that's particularly impressive because Nigel Robson stepped in as Vere only two weeks ago, replacing Robert Tear, who has laryngitis, for the Cardiff performances. Robson offers a beautifully concentrated portrait of the moral torment of wrong actions committed for fear of the motives for right ones. Though broadening dramatic horizons by blurring the division between theatre and conceptual art is a worthy aim, for all its good intentions it fails to make a strong enough case for itself.David BenedictBox Office: 0171-928 6363. Maybe it's unfair to compare a young company such as Primitive Science with late-20th-century greats, but this territory is staked out by Deborah Warner's eerie St Pancras Project, or the chilling, thrilling drama of Robert Wilson's mesmerising HG. Vagabondage adds text and actors, but those are its weakest elements. It's fine to work within a dreamlike framework, but dreams have their own logic; much of the internal logic of Vagabondage is so abstruse, it feels more irritatingly baffling than beguiling."Installation" used to describe the act of plumbing in your washing machine That was before the arrival of cultural studies departments. There are moments of exquisite beauty - white sand (or is it salt?) bathed in light pouring from the ceiling; streams of water cascading into the pool - which achieve a wholly unexpected tenderness.
There is even much-needed wit, including a drooly, sung version of Cole Porter's "Don't Fence Me In", but ultimately the show is far too allusive for its own good. Two narrators (one of whom has such difficulty with the language that entire sentences are lost) feed in philosophical observations such as "if you engage in travel you will arrive". Meanwhile, a vagabond, a timekeeper and a wizard act out the fringes of myth. Borges? Bluebeard? Alice in Wonderland? Who knows? At times it feels like watching an awkwardly dubbed, occasionally compelling Eastern European film.The company is on stronger ground with its theatrical imagery. It brings new meaning to the phrase "set text".Vagabondage, the latest production by Primitive Science, supposedly describes "a pilgrimage through myth and fable, stumbling on magic and irresistible desire." I'm glad I read that on the press release, because the script is so elliptical that you're hard pushed to discern much of a narrative from the ponderously slow slew of sphinx-like utterances that passes for the text. The uncluttered, spectrally lit space appears to be a dark, oblong pool headed by a pair of beautiful blue panelled doors towering up to the ceiling. It's a remarkable image of appearance and disappearance, arrivals and departures For most of the piece, visual imagery supplants words.
At least the all-out marketing campaigns that fuelled those earlier British successes abroad left us back home in peace. But not content with conquering the world - reportedly to the tune of $180m - and garnering a clutch of Oscar nominations, The Full Monty continues to wage a war of attrition on the home front. For several months now, huge chunks of the press have been given over to advertisements featuring Full Monty cast members exhorting the few among us who haven't seen the film to do so immediately. Theatre: Vagabondage Young Vic Studio, London "Water, water on the floor - what is behind the big blue door?" What indeed? The first thing you see when you enter the Young Vic Studio is a socking great metaphor. Day after day, we're chided by this cultural press gang, scorned for not doing our cinema- going duty. Despite the film's ultimate coyness, perhaps The Full Monty's marketing outfit haven't learnt the cardinal rule of striptease: if you've got it, you don't necessarily have to flaunt it.Mike Higgins. When The Full Monty appeared in cinemas last summer, this slight tale of six unemployed men from Sheffield resorting to striptease to earn their crust seemed not to have its sights set on anything other than that peculiarly British ambition, modest success. Even when the film began to emulate the international success of that other British triumph, Four Weddings and a Funeral, we film-goers back in Blighty thought we could rest easy in the knowledge that we had done our bit for the domestic film industry How wrong we were.
