AUSAM/distribut.doc/milarr.n

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ARTS PAGE.
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Shunt's Utopia.
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Gavin Milarrrrrrrrr writes:
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Neville Shunts latest west end success
-  It  all  happened  on  the  11.20   from
Hainault   to   Redhill   via  Horsham  and
Reigate,  calling  at  Carshalton  Beeches,
Malmesbury,  Tooting  Bec  and Croydon West
is currently appearing at the Limp  Theatre
Piccadilly. What Shunt is doing in this, as
in his earlier nine plays,  is  to  express
the  human  condition  in  terms of British
Rail.
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Some  people  have made the mistake of
seeing Shunt's work as a  load  of  rubbish
about railway timetables, but clever people
like me who speak loudly in restaurants see
this  as a deliberate ambiguity, a plea for
understanding in a  mechanised  ethos.  The
points  are frozen, the beast is dead. What
is  the  difference?  What  indeed  is  the
point?  The  point  is frozen, the beast is
late out of Paddington. The point is taken.
If La Fontaine's elk would spurn Tom Jones,
the engine must be our head, the dining car
our  oesophagus,  the  guards  van our left
lung, the cattle truck our shins, the first
class  compartment the piece of skin at the
nape of the neck and the level crossing  an
electric  elk  called Simon. The clarity is
devastating. But where  is  the  ambiguity?
Over  there  in  a box. Shunt is saying the
8.15 from Gillingham  when  in  reality  he
means  the  8.13 from Gillingham. The train
is the same, only the time is altered. Ecce
homo, ergo elk. La Fontaine knew its sister
and knew her bloody well. The point is 
taken,  the  beast is moulting, the fluff gets
up your nose. The illusion is complete;  it
is reality, the reality is illusion and the
ambiguity is the only  truth.  But  is  the
truth,  as  Hitchcock observes, in the box?
No, there isn't room, the ambiguity has put
on  weight.  The point is taken, the elk is
dead, the beast stops at  Swindon,  Chabrol
stops  at nothing, i'm having treatment and
La Fontaine can get knotted.
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Gavin Milarrrrrrrrrrrrr wrrrrrrrrrote.