Afternoon Off

A very poignant account of the problems of being an outsider. It brings out human reactions in a situation of zero empathy and shows how dreadful disinterest in our fellow humans can be. It shows racism as an underpinning attitude in our society.

This Alan Bennett play centres on Lee, a Chinese worker in a restaurant, who wants to see a girl on his afternoon off. His colleagues Bernard (Philip Jackson) and Marjory (Harold Innocent) fix him up with Iris, who works in a shoe shop. So with chocolates in his hand, and thoughts of bed in his heart, off Lee goes into the wide world for adventure.

However Lee speaks very little English and this gets him into trouble wherever he goes. Although this play is well observed, this aspect being played for comedy does make it somewhat dated and it could even seem a little racist. That's a shame, but indicative of the times in which we live.

Good, but brief, supporting performances from the likes of Peter Butterworth, Anna Massey, Elizabeth Spriggs and Pete Postlethwaite lift this play, and a side vignette with Benjamin Whitrow as a moaning diner is quite funny.

Lee does eventually find his Iris, but perhaps not in the way he would have imagined! The ending does seem to run out of steam a little but given what's gone before, that's forgivable. This play is fairly watchable all things considered.

The trope of presenting a culture as seen through the eyes of an outsider is a familiar literary device and dates back to Montesquieu (Lettres Persanes) if not before. The idea is to gain another perspective of the society in which we live so as to see it afresh and hopefully more objectively. This way of writing - literature as social commentary -appeals particularly to those contemptuous of their own culture, which I sense is the case with Alan Bennett. It is all a bit too plodding and obvious and clunky but in 1979 it may well have been considered a cutting and insightful take on modern Britain.