Matthew's Passion - 25th July 2013

Plays about sufferers of Asperger's Syndrome seem to come along like buses. Nothing for ages, then two arrive together. The big current London theatical success is the National Theatre's production of " The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time", while the Welsh offering is "Matthew's Passion" which recently ran at the Sherman Theatre.

Matthew is a sufferer struggling to focus in the real world, instead showing more interest in birds, especially the migration habits of swallows. He lives in a stifling environment, his father being an-old fashioned vicar and his mother struggling to cope with her role as a vicar's wife. Desperate to encourage Matthew to connect with people they engage Martin a travelling musician. In true play fashion this decision has wider implications than they could have expected.

This isn't a play that believes in subtlety. Within five minutes of the start I guessed everything that would unfold and frankly found the first half dull and obvious. Increasingly I feel short plays should run without an interval but here I felt the break worked. It allowed the cast to inject some much-needed pace life into proceedings.

It helped that they finally gave the great comic actress Ri Richards a chance to show her talent creating some much-needed laugh out loud  moments. Immediately, though we are brought down to earth with a rivetting dramatic scene between Matthew's parents with Bethan Morgan hitting every emotional nerve possible.

Overall, I felt the playwright was wrong to centre the attention on a struggling marriage rather than concentrate on the more interesting subject of Asperger's syndrome and led to an evening where the acting was of a higher quality than the writing. I may be being unfairly critical however, having just watched and loved "The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time".