2016 Quarter 2 Review 4/13

004 Historical Comedy – Old 

Radio 4 Extra recently broadcast a few old plays by Steve Walker, the first one of which, The Dolphinarium, was so completely out there I just couldn’t handle it.  I was glad, however, that I gave Habakkuk of Ice a try.  Originally from 2001, although still extremely weird, it came together a bit better.  However, one can see a pattern developing:  Steve Walker seems to really be into ice.  Tim McInnerny was cast against type as a brilliant, eccentric Jewish autodidact with worse-than-average social skills.  Championed by Lord Mountbatten, this boffin was working for the war effort in the early 1940s by spinning off bonkers-but-brilliant idea after idea.  He came up with one to create a fleet of ice troop carriers (the ice mixed with wood pulp to made greater strength against enemy bombardment) called habakkuks (after something in the Talmud).  Aided by his beleaguered graphologist and secretary—who is annoyed by his habit of putting all the furniture on the ceiling and pulling it down by string when needed—and a sympathetic Winston Churchill, the boffin’s idea makes it to hypothetical testing phases in Canada.  However, his inability to work with military types takes him off the project, and eventually money and patience run out, and the war is won without the use of these fantastical creations.  It also starred Dermot Crowley, Melanie Hudson, Chris Emmett, Emmet Hove, Kerry Shale, William Hope, Sean Baker, and Jenny Stoller, and was directed by Andy Jordan.