Independent, 6-Aug-2002
Latin!
By Fiona Sturges

Activated Image's revival of Stephen Fry's two-man play about life at an old-fashioned boys' school tells the tale of Dominic Clarke (Mark Farrelly), an ambitious Latin master with designs on both the headmastership and a boy called Cartwright.

Clarke has recently become engaged to the expiring headmaster's daughter, who is set to inherit the school. But his plan is uncovered by the divinity teacher, Herbert Brookshaw (Tom Noad), a pompous figure who admits that "administration of the cane is one of the few pleasures left in life".

Farrelly clearly relishes his role as Clarke, a man whose love of language is matched only by his appetite for fresh, young bodies. The play comes with a sparky script, laden with shameless schoolboy innuendoes – when Clarke warns one unruly pupil that "if he rubs him up the wrong way he'll come to a sticky end", you don't know whether to laugh or throw up.

While Latin! is played more for laughs than for plausibility – Clarke is obviously no hardened criminal, but the swiftness with which he confesses his crime to Brookshaw is a little, erm, hard to swallow – it remains an irresistibly lively period piece.

Independent, 5-Aug-2002 (page 13)
PICK OF THE DAY

A cringingly well-observed play about a prep-school classics master with a biting line in sarcasm and a penchant for blond-haired, blue-eyed schoolboys. Fine performances in this production of Stephen Fry's 1980 Fringe First winning comedy.