REVIEW - MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS - OCTOBER 1995

The Rocket Theatre Company has been set up as a permanent pub theatre company, promising quality productions which combine established works with new plays.

The staging as you'd expect, is nothing fancy. A stage juts out at one end of the room in front of rows of seats that look conspicuously like pews. The rest of us make do with a mixture of chairs and benches strategically placed under soft lighting.

So what of this inaugural double bill? The Oldest Profession and Something Big, the latter grandly listed as a world premiere, are two short and quirky works by Geoff Newson, an ex-national newspaper feature writer from Wilmslow. The plays are not what you would call cautious first steps. The Oldest Profession is not about prostitution, but gardening. For 45 minutes, Newson deftly squeezes laughs out of the absurd notion that, having been turfed out of the Garden of Eden, Adam comes under the spotlight as the world's first redundant man.

The lively incarnation of Eve as a sassy individual with a high degree of personal fortitude, and tangibly more nous than Adam, gives Newson plenty of room to manoeuvre in some good lines on the inequality of sex equality. He is helped considerably in this play by Joanna Barrie, a deliciously buxom Eve, and by Mark Prentice, who does not look quite as good in the fig leaf outfit.

Something Big is a more ludicrous story of Jonah (Prentice), who has to explain to his mother (Barrie), how and what has happened during the three days he was stuck in the belly of a whale. It would be a waste of time trying to explain each and every metaphor of life I counted. Enough to say that on last night's evidence, pub theatre in the city deserves to be a success.

REVIEW - DAILY MAIL - OCTOBER 1995

The 100 seat Square Albert is tucked away in the basement of a Manchester city centre pub, an odd mix of abandoned chapel, disco dive and old-fashioned cabaret.

The paying customers watch the play from recycled pews, from cafe-style tables and chairs or from the bar (which occupies a bigger area than the stage).

Rocket Theatre, the company in residence, open the season with a brace of crisp two-handers by former Daily Express feature writer Geoff Newson.

The Oldest Profession is not what you think, but old fashioned gardening as Adam is turfed out of Eden and has to fend for himself. "It's a big mistake you're making!" he bawls to his Creator, and - to Eve: "He said 'Increase and multiply' - I'll open a garden centre."

The second play has Jonah, three days in the whale, recounting his ordeal to an indifferent mum. It is as flip and irreverent as the first, but the humour drifts in an unsettling undertow of alienation and near despair.

Both plays are studded with gags and attitudes of unvarying political correctness.

Adam and Jonah (Mark Prentice) are predictably wimpish, and Eve and Jonah's mother (Joanna Barrie) both endowed with character, authority and good sense.

Altogether, The Oldest Profession and Something Big turn out to be a promising professional debut for the playwright, the production company and it's director Martin Harris and Manchester's first full-time pub theater.

The plays run until Saturday.

REVIEW - MANCUNIAN - 9TH OCTOBER 1995

Pub theatre may be new to Manchester, but some experiments pay off, and it certainly seems as if Rocket Theatre Company at the Square Albert have launched themselves towards success.

Their first venture is a double-bill of The Oldest Profession and Something Big, written by the northern playwright Geoff Newson and directed by Martin Harris. These lively and comic adaptations of the biblical stories, Adam and Eve and Jonah and the whale, are acted with enthusiasm and an absorbing humour by the wonderfully vibrant Mark Prentice and Joanna Barrie. Modern issues such as environmental concern and the battle of the sexes are raised and resolved in both plays, giving them a relevance to the world we live in.

I never actually realised that Adam and Eve wore that many fig leaves, and, like Eve, I can't figure out why men have nipples either!

The bright and imaginative sets and costumes perfectly compliment the dazzling and surprisingly young humour, without overwhelming us with the wizardry of technology. I never actually realised that Adam and Eve wore that many fig leaves, and, like Eve, I can't figure out why men have nipples either!

If you can tolerate flicking your beer mat amongst a mainly "suit and briefcase" audience, then the Square Albert has great potential as a venue and is well worth a look if you fancy a bit of relaxed culture to go with your peanuts.

With such an innovative new theatre company on our doorstep, this really could be the beginning of something big!