Venue magazine preview, 27 October 2006

Preview Salt n Sauce

THEATRE "Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies," observed the US novelist Gore Vidal in 1973, with commendable honesty. And this kind of waspish competitiveness is at the heart of Tim Massey's play, the penultimate in this autumn's Theatre West new writing fest. Owing more than a little to his own experiences of taking a play up to the Edinburgh Fringe ("It's loosely based on some of the people I met up there. I had better not say more than that, or I'll get done for libel," he observes), Massey's play centres on rehearsals for a play at the Fringe, and in particular on the rivalries between the play's author – a clubbable geezer who wants to befriend the cast and nurses a particular affection for the young stage manager – and its director, a high-minded thesp who is not in the least bothered about his relationships with the cast, caring only about his Art, dahling. He's also got the phenomenal success of his arch¬rival's play elsewhere at the Fringe to worry about. Massey acknowledges Ricky Gervais's comedy 'Extras' as an influence: "I have tried to get that same embarrassment factor," he says. Break a leg, chaps!

SALT N SAUCE IS AT THE ALMA TAVERN, BRISTOL FROM TUE 31 OCT-SAT 11 NOV.