THEATRE

Alabama God Damn

Pleasance Dome (Venue 23)

Frank Crawford returns home to small-town Alabama for a funeral and finds himself swiftly exposed to the extremes of the Deep South: Bible-thumping churchmen, corrupt businessmen, casual racism and sexism by the boatload.

Uk-based theatre company Hippana acknowledge their debt to S-town, the successful podcast series from This American Life, which is just as well as fans of the series will notice remarkable similarities in the characters and structure of the show. However, Alabama God Damn lacks S-town’s complexity, preferring to go for all-out melodrama and a big fat slice of Southern Gothic.

There is plenty to enjoy, here, notably dynamic performances by Olivier Leclair and Sarah Connolly, and a battery of toe-tapping songs. Less comfortable is the play’s use of a sexual assault

sub-plot which, rather than being explored thoroughly, becomes just another device to show how bad things are in town, and the sudden inexplicable lurch from Southern Gothic into Greek tragedy.

Too often, Alabama God Damn seems to fall back on stereotypes, which don’t bring us any closer to understanding small-town Trumpvoting America.

SUSAN MANSFIELD

Until 26 August. Today 11am,.