Theatre: Ripley BogleCamden People’s

I recently saw a ‘reality’ programme about businessmen who paid hundreds of pounds for the experience of being homeless in London.
For three nights they slept rough. It was supposed to challenge them, to make them appreciate the struggles, humiliation and maybe come to empathise with the homeless.
Ripley Bogle, adapted from the novel by Robert McLiam Wilson, is a captivating one-man show directed by Graham Dixon.
A 90-minute monologue might be dull but Bogle (Sean O’Tarpaigh) reeled me in from the moment he tramped onto the dark Brechtian set. Bogle is a Belfast man, a tough young orphan who has grown up with the IRA on his doorstep. He is also a Cambridge drop out, a poet, philosopher and even a snob.
The first of three monologues begins with Bogle painting vivid images of his life on the streets. From the Queen’s front garden aka St James’s Park, to the cheapness of Leicester Square, London is his kingdom and his exile.
Changing fluidly between characters past and present, the language is so brilliant it is easy to forget this is a one-man show.
He shares his hunger pains, desperation (eating burgers from a bin) and his shameful bitterness. The harshness is softened (perhaps too much) with enormous wit and familiar self-deprecating Irish humour.
There are a few plot twists, which should have been more shocking. The impact is lost a little with the quick pace and anticipated comic relief. This journey doesn’t need to cost a few hundred quid. A trip to see O’Tarpaigh is a far more intelligent idea.
And from what I learnt from Bogle, it is bound to be a far more enjoyable experience.
020 7916 5878
Until May 28