************************* Review of ART by Chris Young, a pupil ambassador from Canon Lee School, York ‘My friend Serge has bought a painting. A rather distinctive painting. It’s a canvas 5ft by 4ft with a white background which if you look closely has white diagonal stripes painted on it’. These are, more or less, the opening lines of ART announced by Andrew Dunn who plays Marc in this brilliant, satirical, witty comedy that initially begins as a simple argument about modern art. Marc believes the painting to be “shit”, as he puts it plainly, whilst Serge (played by Stuart Organ) believes it to be thought provoking and brilliant. These conflicting ideas upon the piece of “art” are furthered by the enormous price tag that Serge had paid; Marc cannot believe that his friend would be so brainless as to pay 200,000 francs for such a monstrosity and Serge believes Marc to be unreasonable with his labelling of his masterpiece as “shit”. Marc in turn believes that Serge is being unreasonable with his labelling of a plain canvas as a masterpiece. The comedy is furthered by the introduction of Yvan, an at first completely normal down to earth stationery salesman, who, as the play furthers, becomes a more and more obviously mentally unstable individual, played by Daniel Hill. As the play continues, the argument over the piece of art is abandoned and we see in its place the three friends analytically studying their fifteen–year friendship and what appears to be it’s inevitable down fall. This cutting edge play, originally written by the French Yasmina Reza, is both philosophically brilliant and thought provoking. Art in the past ten years has become an international phenomenon that no one could ever have predicted. Originally brought to England by the wife of Sean Connery it has since sky rocketed to fame with many a different actor playing the three friends. Damien Cruden’s slick directing really has brought to life this play beyond even that of his predecessors, giving York a riveting and virtuoso play that shall be remembered for a long time. A mention also must go to the lighting director Richard Jones for without his excellent eye and creativity with the lighting the play would not have had such an impact as it has. The play was exquisitely written, the acting amazing and the direction brilliant, yet it was not perfect because I must say that although I am a believer of using swearing for impact and anything else really, I do believe that sometimes it did appear rather gratuitous and just there because they could each swear seemed to be emphasised and drawn out. As I said the play was not perfect but it was so damn close it was scary. Chris Young **************************