Ugly caper

We all know the ‘excellence theory’ of migration. Barriers to entry guarantee that imported cargoes have outstanding qualities. Manfred Karge’s parable of urban despair in the Ruhr comes to the UK with high expectations. It’s been here before. Director Stephen Unwin premièred the play at Edinburgh, 1987. His new revival at the Arcola demonstrates that the ‘false charm theory’ of migration also applies. The foreign and the exotic can mesmerise us more easily than the homegrown. Unwin sets the play in some vague tower-block ghetto. We meet a quartet of jobless alcoholics who become fascinated by Amundsen’s trip to the South Pole. By impersonating Norwegian explorers, the drunken lunks briefly discover some purpose in their sozzled lives.

Clearly, the lunks’ worship of Amundsen is meant as an emblem of their ‘alienation’. What mundanities march under that hallowed banner. Alienation is a cover story for welfare cast-offs born without curiosity, guts or initiative in a society prosperous enough to raise them in complete security.