Jonah and Otto is a lost-soul melodrama that keeps its audience guessing. Where are we? The Channel coast somewhere. Indoors or out? Not sure. Near a church maybe? Violence barges in. Jonah, a mouthy scruff, shoves a knife in the face of Otto, a dignified old gent with Big Ears whiskers and a dark, elegant suit. This strange assault is followed by further peculiarities. Rather than calling the cops, Otto seeks a rapprochement with Jonah and they start a rambling, off-beat friendship. Later we discover that Otto, a Cambridge-educated vicar, has an adult daughter who was crippled in childhood by a road accident, and this detail lends credibility to his desire to befriend and redeem his mugger.
But the relevant information arrives far too late. And while Otto is a coherent character, Jonah is an exploding bird’s nest of illogicalities. He’s a jobless thief who earns spare cash doing conjuring tricks in pubs (does anyone make money like that?). He plays the harmonica. His father’s dead. He’s an epileptic. He calls Otto ‘Dad’. He resents privilege and wealth. He holds a degree in literature from Hull University. He’s got a French girlfriend. And a baby. Six weeks old, abandoned by its mother, the nipper lies in a shopping trolley throughout the action, wide awake but quite mute — just like all newborns. In the second act, someone flicks a switch and an electronic baby-gurgle seeps out of a hidden speaker.
Further mysteries test our patience. Otto falls asleep, sitting upright on a backless bench, and Jonah removes his jacket, shirt and trousers without waking him up. The dialogue in the closing scene is so fragmented that the characters seem to be honking out random noises rather than conducting a conversation.
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