Rimini Riddle

THE characters of Rimini Riddle - The Angelica File, which opened on Tuesday, are based on what is claimed to be a "hugely popular" television series. This co-production of the Cork Opera House and the Belltable Arts Centre of Limerick emphasises the great risk of jumping the disciplines and taking an hour and a half to a plot which, on television, might be stretched to fill 30 minutes.

The story is by Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy and David McKenna, and the script is written by Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy. The direction is by Terry Devlin, courtesy of Island Theatre Company. This is an impressive enough line up to suggest that the play should work as theatre, and especially as theatre for young people. It doesn't. The plot falls lamely between the predictable and the fantastic, the action is almost static and the playing lethargic.

On television these characters have a charm of their own. It does not survive translation. Only Gwynne McElveen's Angelica, tired of an adolescence which has lasted for a hundred years, achieves the theatrical integrity which is the usual shared characteristic of all those involved in this production.