Oliver Reed: Wild Thing

Oliver Reed sits in a pub and, in a manner which manages to bridge the gap between thespian raconteur and the Ancient Mariner, fixes the audience with a glittering eye and proceeds to recount his life story. With extraordinary frequency he pauses to down a bottle of beer, a glass of wine, a large whisky, another beer... Not least admirable about Rob Crouch’s performance as Reed is his bladder capacity. He is also superb at capturing Reed in all his fallibility, vulnerability and rabble-rousing monumentalism.

It is the type of theatre that catches you out. Reed enters in a Gorilla suit – you laugh, it is a reference to his Wild Thing. He regales you with anecdotes and you laugh. In the grandiloquent tones of a great actor he says things of such staggering egotism – you laugh again. But gradually you realise that all this grandeur, all this solipsistic insistence on being the “last of the shit-kickers” is a terrible defiant bravado; an attempt to prove to himself and anyone else that might be listening that although it became a tragic spectator sport, his life—like that of an ancient Roman gladiator—was still glorious.

The script has been adapted with admirable dexterity by Mark Davis and Rob Crouch from Reed’s out-of-print autobiography and archive film footage of interviews. The play loses pace in the last 15 minutes, however Crouch’s bravura realisation of the role more than compensates.