The Red Rogue of Bala review – Outlaw comedy has hints of a rebellious spirit | stage

CJohn Jones’s life is ripe for drama, full of rebellious spirit and audacity bordering on fantasy. He was a North Wales outlaw with the ability to evade authorities, who had risen to criminal levels by the time of his death in 1913, and was nicknamed Welsh Houdini, Little Turpin, and Coch Bach e Bala (Little Redhead of Bala).

So it’s a shame that this debut by theater critic-turned-playwright Chris Ashworth Binion feels like a missed opportunity in its representation of the Jones myth and its failure to penetrate it. The play begins in a bar where Jones (Simon Holland Roberts) is hiding out after escaping from prison. He keeps drinkers fascinated with stories of his “heroic” past and clearly knows how to embody self-mythologies. But is he speaking the truth? Is he an ordinary criminal or a burning rebellious force?

Because of the tonal uncertainty of this play—a comedy and farce that turns dark moments before the end—you don’t feel invested enough to be drawn into these central mysteries.

Jones may have shades of Rooster, the charismatic rogue from Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, but he’s too loosely drawn: a fun, sly, annoying figure like a barefoot Falstaff whose motives are unclear.

Under the direction of Dan Jones, the comedy and characterization are very generic. Reginald Jones Bateman (Qasim Mahmood) is the arrogant Englishman and tyrannical landowner who pursues Jones, with a police officer (Race-Up Trevor) so ineffective that he seems to have sprung from a hackneyed 1970s sitcom.

The plot wanders into a strange and unbelievable case: Reginald’s party has a gun but fails to arrest Jones. A police officer is assaulted and beaten after mistaking him for a badger in a bag (why doesn’t he scream to stop them?). Jones hoists a giant cauldron onto the stage which he says carried him across the Irish seas (what’s the point of that?). This goal may be there to feed the blurred lines between reality and myth, but instead it feels elusive and distracting.

Inter-class romances and illicit romances are touched upon, but they feel like cogs of the plot, and the characters reveal the plots so early, that any tension that might have arisen is pre-empted. Poverty and war are mentioned but not connected to the story.

Designer Mark Bailey’s old pub is evocative with a scattering of spare wood. There are sounds of the approaching Great War as well as friction closer to home. Reginald mentions his time in India as part of the Raj, and there are unspoken parallels with the colonization of Wales. Like Rooster, Jones is connected to this land that was “conquered” by the English aristocracy. But this theme is diluted by the busy plot and humor.

The tragedy and climax move into the realm of legend – is Jones real or the spirit of the ancient Prince of Wales? – It does not have the effect it should. There is a powerful play about the outsider spirit and rebellion and the slippery nature of the storytelling within this play, which comes through in flashes.