At just 60 minutes long, Richard Dormer's one-man bio-drama of snooker player Alex Higgins is as fast and forceful as the man himself was in his heyday. Dormer starts the performance as he ends it: a hoarse, crunched-up drunk in an overcoat muttering as he is ejected from a Dublin bar.
Yet in between, he powerfully conveys the tumultuous career and bitter tragedy of twice world champion Alex Higgins: a man so outstandingly brilliant at snooker he forgot to learn how to live.
Anyone expecting psychological depth or some sort of social or emotional context for the Belfast working class boy's rocketing career and equally spectacular fall from grace will not only be disappointed but will have missed the point. Higgins lived only for snooker and alcohol; his breathtakingly insatiable ego and undeniable talent the only two things that drove him on.
There is nothing more to understand, and in refusing to invite sympathy and sentiment from the audience or overcomplicate Higgins's personality, Dormer conveys this brilliantly.
On a bare stage outlined in light as though it were a snooker table, his strutting, outstandingly observed performance thrives on the self-destructive energy that pushed Higgins's nihilistic descent into drugs and alcohol.
His has been a car crash life and this is car crash theatre, and Dormer's bravura performance makes it unforgettable.
- Until Feb 7, Soho Theatre And Writers Centre, 21 Dean Street W1, Mon to Sat 9.15pm, £15, £12.50 concs. Tel: 020 7478 0100. www.sohotheatre.com Tube: Tottenham Court Road
