BBC Radio 4, 6 April 2012
Inspired by true events, Scream told the story behind the theft
in Oslo of Edvard Munch's classic painting "The Scream" in 2004. Authors Temple-Morris and Hollington claimed that the whole
thing was a charade, designed to deflect police attention away from a cash robbery being planned at the same time. The painting,
together with Munch's lesser-known work "The Madonna" were taken by two apparently incompetent criminals (both played by Eric
Madsen), who made every single mistake in the book, including making themselves visible to passers-by in the street, asking
gallery staff the paintings' whereabouts and so on. Meanwhile the cash was taken in a much more professional manner.
The play itself was not so much interested in explaining the characters' motives,
but concentrated instead on the randomness of events: they might be coincidental, but then again they might not have been.
Despite the best efforts of the police, led by Inspector Steinbeck (Jargen Langhelle), they ended up getting nowhere. In this
apparently random world, logic was at a premium.
Boz Temple-Morris (the director as well as the production's co-writer) emphasized
the randomness of this world through a clever use of sound-effects and music, while letting the action unfold at breakneck
speed. Little time was spared for character-development; what mattered more was to show how unexpected events could disrupt
any attempts at logical reasoning. Hence the master-criminal Toska (played by Madsen) developed an addiction to chocolate,
forcing the police to adopt a bizarre negotiating tactic.
While the production was extremely funny, it nonetheless emphasized how, in real
life, the pieces of a jigsaw rarely fit together when it comes to solving crime.
