Army surplus

Georg Büchner, a justly neglected German playwright, died at the age of 23 leaving a half-finished script about a mad soldier and his cheating girlfriend. This relic has fascinated dramatists ever since because Büchner is regarded as a visionary left-wing artist cruelly stolen before his time. (Not a moment too soon, if you ask me.)

Jack Thorne is the latest to rehash the leftovers. It’s 1981 and we’re in a divided Berlin. We meet a mopey British squaddie, Woyzeck, who shares a flat with his girlfriend from Derry who has the voice of a seagull and the personality of a dishcloth. The flat pongs because it’s located over a slaughterhouse. Bad choice. Let’s move, says Woyzeck. Great, says the Bogside dishcloth. This starts the story. Woyzeck tries to borrow some money. Nothing happens. He considers selling some stolen weapons. Nothing happens. The Bogside dishcloth is asked to work for a charity. She does so. Nothing happens. Woyzeck joins a medical trial and something happens. His brain goes wrong. By now the play is nearly over and Woyzeck’s damaged noodle must force a conclusion. Which it does. Some characters die. So does the evening. Curtain.

The play’s design is all wrong. Two important subordinate characters, the captain and the doctor, never meet the other characters. The parenthetical subplots overshadow the main story. Sex predominates. Weird sex. Nasty sex. Woyzeck has a horrible squaddie friend who likes to seduce army wives. He forces himself on the Bogside dishcloth in a ghastly encounter that borders on rape. He shares soft-porn grunting sessions with the captain’s wife, a honking snob played by Nancy Carroll. This is a pity. Carroll’s talent is world-class. She can match anyone, even Judi Dench, for stage presence, and when it comes to conveying a certain kind of upper-class gaiety her only serious rival is Emma Thompson.