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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/sep/05/maddening-rain-review" title="Old Red Lion, LondonLife is something from which most of us&nbsp;never recover, and the best that the nameless antagonist at the centre of Nicholas Pierpan\'s impressive, if over-extended, monologue can do is to look&nbsp;around at the carnage of his own ..." target="_blank">The Maddening Rain | Theatre review</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">published on Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:30:37 GMT</span><br />');
document.write('<div class=\"track\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.4/85693?ns=guardian&pageName=The+Maddening+Rain+%7C+Theatre+review%3AArticle%3A1447657&ch=Stage&c3=Guardian&c4=Theatre%2CStage%2CCulture+section&c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CTheatre&c6=Lyn+Gardner&c7=10-Sep-05&c8=1447657&c9=Article&c10=Review&c11=Stage&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FStage%2FTheatre\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" /></div><p class=\"standfirst\">Old Red Lion, London</p><p>Life is something from which most of us&nbsp;never recover, and the best that the nameless antagonist at the centre of Nicholas Pierpan\'s impressive, if over-extended, monologue can do is to look&nbsp;around at the carnage of his own making and declare, \"I\'m here.\" It\'s a qualified statement in a piece that at its&nbsp;considerable best offers the <sup></sup>existential disquiet of Will Eno\'s Thom Pain and the comic misanthropy of DC Moore\'s recent Honest.</p><p>Like Moore\'s Dave, the antihero of Pierpan\'s play is a man who knows he\'s living a lie. Unlike his mate, Ross, who puts together a working bowling alley out of discarded parts, this Leicester Dick Whittington who comes to London&nbsp;armed only with two A-levels, and ends up a job as a City trader as the markets crash and burn, can\'t make the bits of his life fit together. The metaphor is a little too pat, as is the central idea suggested in the title of the wise fool who knows that his only option is to douse himself in the rain that has caused everyone else to go insane, so he\'s just like them.</p><p>But Pierpan\'s writing is often astute,&nbsp;capturing the odyssey of an everyman adrift in the city (conjured in loving, bus-route detail) who knows nobody, least of all himself. He can\'t even connect with his past in the shape of his sixth-form love, Sarah, who he rediscovers working in Kilburn M&S. The idea of the bewildered but canny outsider in a middle-class milieu of privilege is neatly conveyed. In a blistering performance mostly delivered from one spot, Felix Scott ensures that this man, who doesn\'t just have a chip on his shoulder, but an entire forest, is always fascinatingly watchable: a bit-part player who unexpectedly finds himself in the spotlight on the stage of life.</p><p class=\"rating\">Rating: 3/5</p><div class=\"related\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><ul><li><a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre\">Theatre</a></li></ul></div><div class=\"author\"><a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/lyngardner\">Lyn Gardner</a></div><br/><div class=\"terms\"><a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk\">guardian.co.uk</a> &copy; Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href=\"http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html\">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds\">More Feeds</a></div><p style=\"clear:both\" />');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/sep/05/max-stafford-clark-big-fellah" title="Against medical advice, Max Stafford-Clark, still recovering from  a stroke, is getting stuck into a new play – about New York and the IRA. Stuart Jeffries meets a theatre giantOn the morning of this interview, it took Max Stafford-Clark 16 minutes and ..." target="_blank">Max Stafford-Clark: by hook or by crook</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">published on Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:30:36 GMT</span><br />');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/sep/05/diciembre-review" title="Royal LyceumIt could be any Christmas reunion. There are the verbal rallies that turn into bickering arguments. There is the tipsy auntie who pops in from next door and offends everyone. There is the mixture of introspection, resentment and sentimentality..." target="_blank">Diciembre | Edinburgh theatre review</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">published on Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:28:17 GMT</span><br />');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/sep/05/jonathan-harvey-classical-music-amplifiers" title="Professor of music pushes \'blasphemous\' idea of concerts where people can talk or walk out in middle of a movementOne of Britain\'s leading composers is calling on fellow classical musicians to abandon the stuffy conventions that surround the concert ha..." target="_blank">Composer Jonathan Harvey calls for amplified classical music to attract young audiences</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">published on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 23:07:09 GMT</span><br />');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/sep/05/best-performance-richard-thomas" title="Guys and Dolls, National theatre, London, 1982Richard Eyre\'s production of Guys and Dolls at the National, which I saw when I was about 17, nearly 30 years ago, was the best thing I ever saw in my life. I went with my twin and we slept overnight to queue..." target="_blank">The best performance I\'ve ever seen: Richard Thomas</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">published on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 23:06:22 GMT</span><br />');
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