City Limits
7-20 May 1983

By H. O. Nazareth

et at the time of the Napoleonic wars, when the Enclosure Acts were also creating havoc with the lives of the poor peasantry and part-time farmers, Other Worlds comes to the Royal Court on the heels of Victory, a play about another period of upheaval in British history. After a stormy beginning, it proceeds at farmhorse pace, to follow the rivalries between farmers and fisherfolk, their loves, lives and supersititions over two Yorkshire generations. A gorilla, the mascot and only survivor of the (British Troop) ship wrecked in the storm, is taken for a Frenchman and captured by fishermen (patriotic in spite of ill-treatment at the hands of their richer compatriots. Towards the end of the play, before they're both hanged, the worthy ape briefly reveals to a fellow prisoner--herself a victim of circumstance and mistaken identity--his experience and name (Mister Africa). It's as if the playwright himself succumbs to the folk myths he is presenting to introduce an earthly precursor to ET. The play's three hours afford plenty of time to pick the wheat from the chaff: flawed direction (a stagey attack by a farmer on a fisherman, for instance); good acting, notably by Jim Broadbent and Juliet Stevenson; and some excellent sets. The script seems to be the main offender, rich in detail, but lacking a centre.

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