Casting The First Stone Review from 2003

A review I found from 2003 of Wednesday Productions 'Casting the First Stone'I cannot believe I did that 10 years ago.

Casting the First Stone

Wednesday Productions

By Steve Jansen

The cheesy scene was created with the aid of a manky pair of pants and assorted festooned carefully chosen items of garbage and convincing images of squalor. Looking at the set was enough to give you verrucas and the verruca theme was one of several cunning plot devices, which carried us through to an electrifying finish.

We found ourselves in the flat of four 'out of work actors' well drawn and guilty of being no hopers, all chasing the same role. The first character skidded into action-sporting hideous undergarments, while incongruously ironing pants, which were very cheesy indeed. Piles (or hemorrhoids  of fun followed, if you will forgive the disgusting imagery-which only got worse as traffic cones and orifice related analogies were rammed into the mix of puerile humour.

Those of us right down there in the anal phase had a lot to laugh at, and for those who prefer their humour to be set mostly above the waist, there were some funny parts too. (Parts, meaning aspects rather than genitalia in this context).

The characters were well drawn and pathetic in the sense of exuding a teeny bit of pathos in their own way. The boozer, the bimbo, the desperate, the old soak, the homosexual, the monkey .the pants... Everyone's dirty underwear was on display.

With piles of laughs in every crevice, the piece was carried along in places where the story line was a bit thin, by the futile and increasingly bitchy power struggle which was unfolding between four sad losers.

Derivative of 'Men Behaving Badly' or 'The Young Ones', the idea has the makings of a sitcom favourite. Ideal Friday night viewing after a couple of pints of lager and a nice kebab.

Nicola Martin