A Stretch of the Imagination

Why has Monk O'Neill taken so long to reach England? Jack Hibberd wrote this one-man play about a surly, voluble Aussie awaiting death in the Outback in 1972; perhaps we're finally ready for quite such a complicated colonial. O'Neill is an Antipodean cliché wrapped in an enigma, although he might punch you for saying so. But don't write him off as a churl - he claims a classical education, rants with startling sophistication, and reads at least a line of Plato. If it is Plato, and he's actually reading.

Beckett's influence is marked: instead of absent Godot, O'Neill offers us Mort Lazarus, awaited by nobody and going nowhere anytime soon. But mainly, this is a tussle with Australia's complex self-image. O'Neill is eloquent and boorish, sexist and lovelorn, clever and pitiable; he never shuts up and he never says anything. Mark Little (who also designed the superbly ramshackle set) does him exceptional justice, hunching his shoulders and waving his stubbled head like an angry vulture as he picks at the putrid flesh of his own life. Yet he also voices his country's longing to be taken seriously - to have England lick Australia's boots and America shake her hand - and until then, he's batting off condescension on behalf of the entire nation. The only time we'll get to look down on Monk O'Neill is in his coffin and, given that he's lined it in silk, added a mattress for comfort and left his worldly goods to the Aboriginal peoples, probably not even then.