7/10

By Alan Ayckbourn

Directed by Alan Ayckbourn

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Thursday 9th June 2011

I do like an Ayckbourn, and this one is no exception. It’s an older play, first performed in 1994, and unless the author made some changes, it’s amazing how well it predicted life in 2011. Excellent performances all round, as usual, and the whole time-travel thriller concept was good fun to watch. I didn’t get many of the film references – Psycho was obvious, but I didn’t recognise any others – but this didn’t spoil my enjoyment one bit.

The action all took place in one room on the top floor of a posh hotel. There was a door on the far right to a cupboard, which also had a door into the room next to this one, which was only used for storage. When the characters entered this cupboard, either to hide or to go through to the next room, the lights went down, the cupboard space swivelled round and they emerged into a different time period. We started in 2031, a character called Poopay went back to 2011, and another character called Ruella went further back, to 1991. As a result of this complicated to-ing and fro-ing, lives were saved and one psychopath was killed, twice. The final scene showed us how these changes had affected Poopay’s life, and it was a nice happy ending to finish with.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me