A Clockwork Orange
Action to the Word in association with C theatre
C, 3rd – 29th August, 2011

I had a teenage obsession with 1970s glam rock which soon extended into an interest in most anything 70s. Though I admit the pink corduroy flares were a mistake, most of my discoveries from that time have carried into my mid-twenties. My heart still flurries at the sound of a police siren which can only mean one thing; Blockbuster.

Part of this 70s obsession involved taping Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange off a late night screening on Channel 4 on a VHS in the basement study so my mum wouldn’t find out I was watching it. David Bowie used inspired by Kubrick’s work and used Bethoven’s Ninth Symphony, as featured in A Clockwork Orange to open all his Ziggy Stardust performances, so obviously I would like the film too.

It did nothing for me and didn’t last long before being taped over (most likely with the Pokemon marathon on CITV). I never thought to give the book a go.

My feelings towards the text were positively changed by the energetic adaptation from Fourth Monkey at the 2010 Festival Fringe. A bricabrac drenched set and highly decorative costumes really worked for me.

The bright, vicious production not only convinced me that every encore should take the form of a dance routine but, more crucially, that there may be something more to the text. It is in Alex’s domestication and subsequent treatment that the real meat of the play lies.

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