Review: Richly comedic and deeply unsettling

John Foster as Danny Moffet in The Daylight Atheist. Photo / Glenn Taylor

Tom Scott's memoir, The Daylight Atheist, is loosely based on his own father; it is a bleakly honest portrayal of an embittered life, poisoned by alcohol.

Danny Moffatt has alienated himself from his family to live with his torments, shut away in his bedroom, interrupted only by meals dutifully prepared and served on a tray, and frequent, extended visits to the pub.

In a critical scene, the dishevelled old man, terrifyingly alone, grieves for his only friend Jack, his Maori drinking mate. Jack was the only human being Moffatt liked or trusted and into whom he had channelled his affection, while his neglected family carried on their lives around him.

I'm moved by the pathos and I want to understand how someone so full of intelligence and potential can have brought himself to such a conclusion. And yet, it is a natural consequence: he's a horrible man.

Waipukurau actor John Foster is Moffatt and in this subtly nuanced performance as he reveals the caustically funny, verbally violent and self-tortured character through a two-hour monologue.

He and his wife "Dingbat" are Irish New Zealanders, "Egghead", their academically bright son, is the young Tom Scott and he treats them both with utter contempt. But when Foster portrays Danny the 8-year-old, separated from his Mammy and Da to live with his Auntie Betty, he wails, "I feel like an orphan yet my parents are still alive," and we understand something of his hurt.

Writing this memoir must have been a cathartic experience for Scott and Foster's extraordinary performance does it full justice. At times it is hard to watch, yet it is also richly comedic and Foster's timing is immaculate.

I give it five stars - but just one thing: it was quite difficult to catch all the words as sound seems to be an issue at the Playhouse, so a speaker-headset would have made it even better.

•Season: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, August 27, 28, 29; Thursday, Friday, Saturday, September 3, 4, 5.

The Daylight Atheist
Theatre Hawke's Bay
Playhouse, Hastings