Resident Alien

The promo for Resident Alien reads "Oprah Winfrey, Princess Diana, oral sex - no topic is off limits as Quentin explains, in his inimitable way, how to be happy." But the sex talk was far from taboo, Princess Diana a trivial protestation, and Oprah Winfrey a nice quip at best. Quentin Crisp was most certainly a splendid figure, strong, outspoken, and a monument to himself. To display him isolated from his context, though, in his own apartment, alien to the outside world, eliminates his vigour. It's 2016 and if a rendition of Quentin Crisp is to be shocking, it must be shocking insofar as his place in his time; his views now are only shocking in the fact that his radicalism is dated and his controversy 'done'.

In spite of this major difficulty, Paul Capsis gives a thoughtful and sustained rendition of the fabulous degenerate. He is a suitable mixture of haggard, vivacious and world-weary. His physical performance was at times entirely authentic and clumsily executed, wandering in unnecessary directions through the space and touching at the bed for support that he quite clearly didn't use; these details are crucial in a one-man show of over an hour where every movement soaks up the audience's attention thirstily.

For a first-glance at an interesting and once controversial trailblazer, Resident Alien is a good night out. Similar feelings are not, however, evoked, nor even successfully explained in this one-man show. It's well put together but its foundations are shaky.