Disco craze returns for a new run

Crazy Gary’s Mobile Disco, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

DON’T let the title of this drama fool you into thinking it’s a lighthearted romp featuring some of your favourite pop sounds.

Instead Crazy Gary’s Mobile Disco – the breakthrough play from Welsh writer Gary Owen revived by Waking Exploits – is a study of masculinity in crisis.

And while it may start off inside a karaoke bar in a small Welsh town on a Saturday night, it soon descends into darkness. Directed by Matt Ball, it focuses on a trio of men whose lives are connected and the drama unfolds in three monologues.

Gary (Jordan Bernarde) is an alpha male whose mobile disco business is threatened by the new karaoke craze.

He’s a shaven-headed bully who’s angry at the world and with every sentence he spits out a series of expletives. But he’s stopped in his tracks when he sees his idea of the perfect female in a bar and can’t hide his disdain when another man appears at her side.

That man is her boyfriend Russell (Sion Pritchard) who we later discover was one of Gary’s schoolboy victims. He can’t live with the traumas he experienced as a young lad and wants to flee the town. And while would-be karaoke king, Matthew D Melody (Gwydion Rhys), has fallen for Candy, he’s also unable to forget his past.

Like the minds of the men, the set is messy. Littered with beer bottles, smashed glass, a battered suitcase and upturned chairs as well as two small screens featuring often-bleak video footage – a bloodied mouth anyone? – it often distracts rather than adds to the piece. But you can’t fault the solid performances from the three actors who appear like caged animals held captive by their demons.

A thought-provoking look at how your formative years can shape your life.

Crazy Gary’s Mobile Disco is at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff until September 27, Halliwell Theatre, Carmarthen on October 1; Aberystwyth Arts Centre on October 3; Neuadd Ogwen, Bethesda on October 7 and Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea on October 9

Karen Price