Category Archives: Comedy

The Ruffian On The Stair – June 2010

6/10

By Joe Orton

Directed by Emma Faulkner

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre

Date: Tuesday 8th June 2010

This was the second piece in the Directors’ Showcase. I think the program said this was Orton’s first play. It certainly felt like an early piece, though the themes of homosexuality, religion and death were strongly evident, as was the use of commonplace, even banal language with slightly ‘off’ behaviour to bring about a strong sense of menace.

Joyce and Mike live in a small flat, not much more than a bedsit. He’s an Irish enforcer type with misogyny running through him like Brighton rock. Almost as deeply imbedded are his religious principles, although they don’t deter him from bumping off the occasional victim at the behest of some unspecified crime boss.

Joyce used to work as a prostitute, but now she lives with Mike in a pretend marriage, putting up with his bullying ways either because she knows nothing else or because she’s too scared to try for something better. Or both. Along comes Wilson, who turns out to be the very loving brother of Frankie, the most recent chap to have been mown down by Mike’s van. Apart from freaking Joyce out with some seriously anti-social behaviour (this being the sixties, there was no one else around to witness his activities – remember them days?) his intention seems to be to commit suicide by having Mike shoot him over his, Wilson’s, supposed affair with Joyce, or Maddy, as she used to be known (and definitely in the biblical sense). I did wonder briefly if he also intended to get Mike arrested for killing him, to get some sort of justice for Frankie, but then I realised I’ve been watching too many crime dramas.

To be fair to Wilson, he did apologise to Joyce several times for any inconvenience he was causing her, like getting her rather violent ex-boxer of a pretend husband to think she’d been unfaithful to him, but there was a silver lining to all of this. When Mike actually considered killing her, the prospect of spending the rest of his life alone was too scary to handle, so he decided he loved her, and wanted to stay with her. It’s possibly the most romantic moment in the whole of Orton’s oeuvre.

So at the end of the play, Wilson is lying dead on the floor of the flat, just as he wanted all along, Mike and Joyce are as close as they’re ever likely to be (he’s going to tell the police he shot Wilson to defend Joyce from being attacked) and the only real casualty, apart from the pre-deceased Frankie, is the poor goldfish, whose bowl was smashed by a stray bullet. Still, it gave us one of the best closing lines I’ve ever heard in a play. As Mike comforts Joyce, telling her he’ll call for the police to sort it all out, he reminds her that they, too, have wives. And goldfish. Excellent finish.

The set was much more complicated for this one. In front of us was a sink cabinet, with both shaving and washing up equipment – I could smell the coal tar soap. To the left of that was a sideboard, then the door to the bedroom in the corner. Diagonally opposite us was the sofa, with a comfy chair to the left, a table in front of it, and a small cabinet to the right which held the crucifix and a small statue of the Virgin Mary. The outer door was in the far right corner, and to our right was the kitchen table and chairs. Props and costumes were all wonderfully period.

I realised watching this that one of the reasons I don’t get on so well with some writers such as Orton and Beckett is that I wasn’t brought up a Catholic, or any particular religion for that matter. I often feel there’s something I’m missing when I watch these plays, and perhaps there is. Still, I got most of the humour today, and I certainly found it uncomfortably menacing at times. The performances were perfection, and I only rated it 6/10 because there was so little to it. At fifty minutes long, it certainly packed in the action, but it took a little too long to establish Wilson’s connection to Mike, and the unpleasantness of both men towards Joyce was never going to endear me to the play.

Post-show. There were several attempts by one gentleman in the upper level to hijack the discussion with a solo diatribe on the awfulness of the first piece, Tom’s A-cold. Fortunately the audience and the two young directors (Sam sent his apologies) managed to fend him off.

Lora found her play through attending a play reading at Oxford(?) several years ago, and had wanted to put it on stage since then, so this was the perfect opportunity. Emma found it quite hard to select her play. Her remit was to find a short piece by a well-known writer which used three or four characters, and ran for only fifty minutes. It took months, but finally she thought of Orton and discovered this play, which she hadn’t known before. They each had to direct on their own this time – no assistants for the first-time directors – although they did the casting process together. I got the impression that as well as learning a lot about what the director’s job entails, they’ve also started to establish their network of contacts, which can be so important in many areas of life.

Apparently we were a quite sophisticated audience – not too many of us fell asleep, and we laughed at some of the jokes. Our quick response to the second line of Ruffian told them we were with the cast from the off. Perhaps the grim nature of the first play made us more receptive to the humour of the second – we needed a good laugh by then – although both pieces were pretty dark. Many people enjoyed both of the plays, though in different ways, and the cast and directors were warmly applauded at the end.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

London Assurance – May 2010

9/10

By Dion Boucicault

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Saturday 29th May 2010

The only reason this isn’t rated 10/10 is our unfortunate lateness, arriving half an hour after the start, and having to stand at the back of the circle till the interval. (A trespasser on the line between Haywards Heath and Three Bridges, or a suspected blockage in the Balcombe tunnel, depending on which of the many apologetic announcements you believe.) Even so, we were laughing loudly within a couple of minutes, at the servant, Cool’s comment ‘How polite. Must be a lawyer.’ And we kept on laughing, even before we took our seats for the second half.

It was good to see Simon Russell Beale giving us a fop again. It’s a good few years since his grounding in such roles at the RSC, and he hasn’t lost his touch, just refined it superbly with experience. His clothes weren’t as OTT as is usual with fops, but his affected mannerisms told the story just as well, possibly better. The way he threw a cushion to the floor in preparation for dramatically throwing himself on it in his pursuit of Lady Gay, was almost as funny as his pained expression when he did manage to collapse onto said cushion. There comes a time in life when romantic gestures have to become more restrained – Sir Harcourt is long past that time.

Fiona Shaw was perfect as Lady Gay Spanker – her entrance alone had both her and the audience hooting with laughter, never mind her excellent delivery of the lines. I would have loved to be closer to see her racing-commentator-style description of a recent steeplechase, but even from the gods it was good fun.

The set was just right, too. Enough detail to evoke the country squire’s manor, but not too fussy. The walls were a z-shape, with the inside portion showing us the drawing-room, and the other side, courtesy of the revolve, showing us the outside of the property. The hunting theme was established early on with lots of stuffed heads on the walls, and given that I know nothing about these things, I assume the furniture and costumes were period perfection – the NT knows how to do these things properly. Of course, we missed the earlier scenes in London, so I’ve no idea what that bit looked like; if we can get to see this again, I’ll be keen to get there on time to enjoy that part as well.

I believe I’ve described the story well enough in a previous set of notes, and although Richard Bean had assisted with some updates, there were no changes to the overall plot. The most notable updating was that Solomon Isaacs, the moneylender from whom Charles Courtly has been hiding, turns out to be from the East. Not Cheltenham, as one character suggests, but farther east than that. A gentleman of Chinese extraction, in fact. The look of surprise on the faces of the assembled throng were a joy to behold, with Lord Harcourt’s expression of astonishment topping them all. Before he leaves, Solomon Isaacs rounds it off by advertising that he’s willing to give anyone with money troubles a consolidated loan, interest-free for the first eighteen months. Lady Gay was quick to take a card, I noticed.

The other performances were also excellent. It was a shame Richard Briers had so little to do as Lady Gay’s husband, but he did all of it brilliantly. Matt Cross as Dazzle, the high-living, lower-class scrounger, doesn’t have so much to do after the start (which we missed), but we both enjoyed his contemporary-sounding ‘walk away’ lines when breaking up a fight. And all the rest were equally as good in this top-notch production.

One final moment to remember – the look of horrified astonishment from Sir Harcourt Courtly as his son, confessing his earlier deception in pretending to be Mr. Hastings, whipped off his glasses to show that he and Mr. Hastings are one and the same! Hilarious, and worth the price of a ticket on its own.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Habit Of Art – May 2010

9/10

By Alan Bennett

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Saturday 15th May 2010

At last we made it! We had to miss an earlier performance due to ill health or travel problems or somesuch, so I was very glad to get here today. This is probably the best thing we’ve seen this year so far, almost 10/10, but unfortunately it not only included some of Auden’s poetry (not a fan) but the format is a play within a play, where the fictional author’s work is meant to have some less good bits in it, such as talking furniture, talking facial creases, etc. These were fine up to a point, and did give us some very good laughs, but they do have the drawback of being not very good, and however much I put them in quotation marks they still tend to lower the standard. There were a few other areas that became unnecessarily dull as well, but overall the experience was very great fun.

The set was excellent. I’ve never been in a rehearsal room at the National, but the design looked very similar to the workshops which we saw on a backstage tour. Left and back walls were white brick, apart from an area of black panels in the back wall, while the right wall was wooden strips. The fictional play’s set was mocked up in the middle – small raked area with desk, two chairs, piano behind, door to the right of that, kitchen area to the left (bits were labelled ‘fridge’ and cooker’), bed raised up behind piano, and an upper level on the left with a grand piano and chair – destined for the Cottesloe, then. Around this ‘set’ there were several chairs front left, and a string of desks to the right, including a keyboard. The ‘real’ sink was against the left wall, behind the entrance door. Even the ceiling lights were authentic. And there were all sorts of books and other junk cluttering up the ‘set’.

The performance started early, with the ASM arriving first to set things up. The audience pretty much ignored this, so I was glad when they finally twigged that we were under way and shut up in time for us to hear the dialogue. The second half was much the same, with cast members arriving back in the rehearsal room in dribs and drabs, and chatting away to each other. The audience were a bit more alert second time around, thank goodness.

The play within the play concerned a meeting between Auden and Benjamin Britten after a gap of some thirty years in which they discussed, amongst other things, Britten’s next project, an opera based on Death In Venice, the Thomas Mann novel. It also covered Auden’s complete lack of hygiene, his preference for sucking off rent boys to a very strict schedule, and various other musings on the lives of these and other famous men. We got the inevitable ‘more fucking elves’ comment about Tolkien’s work, and of course the music was largely Britten’s, although Show Me The Way To Go Home also featured.

The contextual play allowed for frequent interruptions to question the facts, the dialogue, the staging, etc., and meant that a good deal of extra information could be brought out without having to double-dramatise it. And there was all the fun of watching a ‘rehearsal’ in progress, with many wry observations on the way these things work, the way actors behave, the diplomacy skills required to keep it all on track (Frances de la Tour was excellent as the stage manager) and the way the National itself operates. For example, two of the actors couldn’t make the rehearsal because they were in the Chekov matinee, although one of them did turn up during the interval chit-chat on stage in full Russian peasant gear.

The performances were, as usual, excellent, with many lovely touches. Adrian Scarborough’s actor character, who played Carpenter, the biographer of both Auden and Britten, was deeply distressed to find out that his part was simply a dramatic device, and his attempt to bring out more of Carpenter’s background by dressing up and singing a song about the wind made for a great start to the second half. Alex Jennings’ character Henry contributed some interesting revelations about his time as a rent boy when he was studying at RADA, thinly disguised as the experiences of ‘a friend’, while Elliot Levey as the author gave Bennett a chance to poke fun at the writer’s lack of authority in the rehearsal room. All good fun, and worth the wait to see it.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Yes, Prime Minister – May 2010

8/10

By Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn

Directed by Jonathan Lynn

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Thursday 13th May 2010

Opening night! First performance! And they did it very well. Our overall impression was that the piece is pretty good but a little uneven, and tonight’s experience should help them make the necessary adjustments.

The set made good use of the vast plains of the main stage. Representing the PM’s study at Chequers, there were doors to the left and right of centre, one being integrated into the bookcases along the right hand wall. A sofa and chair were left and centre, the PM’s desk was in front of the bookcases, and there was a shaped window seat to our right, fitting nicely in with the design of the edge of the stage, which showed the outside of the building – path, flowers, etc. Between the doors at the back was a large window, with autumnally-coloured trees seen through it. The storm effects included real wet stuff, fortunately confined to the exterior locations.

The plot concerned a possible oil deal with a fictitious -stan, which thanks to the topsy-turvy world of international finance, would mean Europe getting the dosh now, so they could afford to buy the oil later. Or something like that. Basically, it was a multi-trillion bribe to lock European states into paying a higher price for this state’s oil in the future. With the PM absolutely gagging for it (the deal, that is), the only snag seems to be a request from the -stani foreign minister for a pre-defiled schoolgirl, under our age of consent, for a spot of post-dinner ravishing. The moral, political and practical dilemmas this request poses are thoroughly explored through the second half, and include a prayer session, the aforementioned storm, an illegal immigrant working as a cook at Chequers, a live interview on the BBC, and the Royal helicopter. Nuff said.

Of course, that’s only the bare bones of the evening’s entertainment, with topical references skittering across the stage so fast I probably missed a few. And the perennial problems of being the man in charge got the usual airing as well. One of my favourite bits was when the PM has a despairing rant about all the woes that afflict him (Job had it easy), culminating in the final straw, global warming, whereupon his head sank onto the back of a chair. Mind you, there were plenty of other lines that got a great response from the audience. After the uncertainties of recent weeks, I suspect we were all ready to let off steam, and this was the perfect opportunity. This is the area that’s most likely to be updated, as events at Westminster and Downing Street unfold, while Sir Humphrey’s elaborate monologues, explaining in ‘simple’ terms the complexities of some subtle point of the art of government, will no doubt be untouched. Henry Goodman as Sir Humphrey did an excellent job delivering these speeches, and if the people behind us had been quieter I would have enjoyed them even more. Jonathan Slinger played Bernard with the right degree of innocence, classical education, and moral indignation, while Emily Joyce did her best with the part of Special Policy Advisor, but I felt her lines didn’t get as many laughs as the others. Sam Dastor did a very nice job as the -stani ambassador – from him we learned that Sir Humphrey’s nickname at Oxford was ‘Bubbles’ – and William Chubb and Tim Wallers were fine as the BBC Director General and a mock Jeremy Paxman.

Teamwork notwithstanding, the honours for tonight, by the narrowest of majorities, must go to David Haig as the PM, Jim Hacker. He covered the whole range of emotions, posturing like a strong leader one minute, and then collapsing into wimp mode the next. I especially liked his response to Sir Humphrey telling him he’s been courageous – ‘have I?’ he says, sinking onto the window seat full of worry and concern.

The issue of under-age prostitution was stronger stuff than we’re used to from this team, and I felt a bit uncomfortable for a while, but the writing focused on the responses of the various characters, and the humour of that soon got me involved again. A few people did leave during the interval, but on the whole, we’re looking forward to seeing this again in a few weeks.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Dumb Show – April 2010

2/10

By Joe Penhall

Directed by Stephen Unwin

Venue: Rose Theatre, Kingston

Date: Thursday 15th April 2010

Dire. Superficial. Banal. I rarely get to use these words to refer to a performance we’ve seen, but today they’re all apt. The second half showed some improvement, but not enough to raise the overall rating, and although there were a few good laughs, for the most part this was a waste of a good afternoon. (Although as it was also the day of the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud closing UK airports, that may a little unfair.)

The story was of Barry, an Asian performer whose show was never clearly specified, being courted for business purposes in a hotel suite by a couple of bankers, who are actually investigative journalists out to get a story for the Sunday sleaze papers about how a well-loved entertainer is actually involved in naughty stuff, such as booze, drugs, improper sexual advances, etc., etc. You know the sort of thing. With a name like Barry, I assume the central character was originally more home-grown, but with Sanjeev Baskar playing the part it was fine-tuned to reflect his background.

The reporters, played by Emma Cunniffe and Dexter Fletcher, want to get more details from Barry to confirm what they’ve already got, and to find even more juicy bits to make the story bigger. They use all sorts of tactics, from bullying to enticements, and it was very clear that nothing they said could be believed. There was a short spell in the second half when Barry stood up to them, but then he went back to being putty in their hands, for no discernible reason I could see. Eventually he left, threatening them with all sorts of lawsuits if they published their story, and the final scene shows Barry meeting again with Liz in the same hotel room so she can tempt him to provide a follow-up story of how much he loved his wife Valerie, now dead from the cancer(?) that she’d been suffering from during Barry’s earlier stint in the room. The play ends with Barry, who’d been going to walk out on her, taking the phone to speak to her editor and after thinking for a long while, asking how much the fee would be.

The story wasn’t new, given how much this topic gets bandied about these days, and from this performance I’d have to say that the writing was pretty weak. There weren’t enough laughs to make it a properly enjoyable piece, and while the superficiality of the writing might be excused on the grounds that these are superficial people, that level of dialogue doesn’t support this long a play unless it’s done entirely for laughs. It takes a much better standard of authorship to make us care about the shallow, conceited, callous folk on show here. The opening was so fast and furious it reminded me of David Mamet’s work, but this was definitely sub-sub-sub Mamet in quality.

However, we’re both agreed that if this play does come around again with a different cast, we might be prepared to give it a go. Emma Cunniffe was fine, and Dexter Fletcher would have been fine if he had projected sufficiently for us to catch more of his lines, but Sanjeev Baskar was just too nice to give the production the darker edge it needed. Far from seeming the alcoholic, cheating husband who snorted cocaine like his life depended on it, he looked more like a man who would be home in good time for dinner because his wife might tell him off in a loud voice if he didn’t. His emotional range was limited, so that, apart from a flash of anger in the second half, his character didn’t seem to be feeling much at all. In the opening scene, when the two journalists are wheedling him into having some champagne, more could have been made of Barry’s alcoholism, and the fact that their pressure makes them seriously complicit in his bad behaviour later, after he’s downed most of the contents of the mini-bar.

That aside, Sanjeev can deliver a funny line really well; if only there had been a lot more of them, we’d have really enjoyed ourselves.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Taking Steps – March 2010

8/10

By Alan Ayckbourn

Directed by Alan Ayckbourn

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre

Date: Thursday 25th March 2010

What joy! Not only a great performance of one of Ayckbourn’s funniest plays (as with Shakespeare’s ‘problem’ plays, the description ‘funniest’ seems to apply to the vast majority of Ayckbourn’s work), but the master himself was there at the post-show, answering questions with patience, kindness and humour. A great afternoon.

This particular play was first performed back in the 70’s, and because of the way it’s set up, it only works in the round, as with the Stephen Joseph theatre itself. So the London transfer to a proscenium arch didn’t work too well, and, knowing this, Sam Walters persuaded Alan Ayckbourn to let him put it on again at the Orange Tree, a space only slightly smaller than its Scarborough birthplace.

The plot of this farce is unbelievably complex, but as usual Ayckbourn has woven a rich tapestry of humour with a fairly straightforward situation and a cast of complete misfits. Lizzy, an ex-dancer, is married to Rowley, a successful, sorry, very successful businessman who’s in buckets. And bin liners. If you’ve got rubbish to dispose of, he’s your man. Only he’s not going to be Lizzy’s man much longer, as she’s in the process of writing a note for her husband to tell him she’s gone for good. If only her handwriting was clearer. Her brother, Mark, a man who could take gold in 2012 if boring people to sleep was an Olympic sport, attempts to read it out, and we were in fits of laughter as he tried to figure out what she was saying. ‘Courage’ did especially badly, coming out first as ‘cabbage’, then as ‘carnage’. Lizzy takes so long packing that Rowley’s back home before she can make her escape, and she has to wait for a suitable moment to get away, Mark having already left to pick up his ex-fiancée Kitty from the station.

When Rowley does get back, he’s confronted by Mr Watson, who’s been sent by Rowley’s solicitor with the contracts for the purchase of the big Victorian house he’s currently renting from Mr A. Not that Mr Watson explained his presence so concisely. He’s one of those characters who drifts along on sporadic eddies of words; if you’re lucky, they make a coherent sentence. Few people were lucky this afternoon. Mr A also turns up, hardly recognisable in his biker’s gear and helmet, and he, Rowley and Mr Watson go for a tour of the house. Mr A is a builder, and Rowley wants to talk through the massive amount of work that needs to be done.

Mark arrives back with Kitty, and leaves her in the attic, where she also decides to leave a note and run off. By this time, Lizzy’s note has been found, and after an initial misunderstanding, Rowley learns he’s been abandoned. Mr A leaves without getting the money he needs to keep his business afloat, and Rowley persuades Mr Watson to keep him company, just for the night. With the usual awkwardness of characters in farce, Mark ends up in one of the ‘brown’ rooms, Rowley goes to bed in the attic, thereby trapping Kitty in a cupboard for the night, and Mr Watson spends the night in the master bedroom. When Lizzy returns, having decided to make a go of it with Rowley, she’s completely unaware that it’s not her husband she’s getting into bed with, while Mr Watson, believing the story of the ghost of a prostitute who spends the night with a man who then dies the next morning, is horrified when this ‘ghost’ materialises next to him. And that’s just the first half!

The second half involves suspected suicide attempts, Mr Watson being discovered in bed with two different women (on separate occasions), a near strangling, the purchase of the house, and yet more bids for freedom. And it was all huge fun, and well appreciated by the audience.

Now for the set. We sat at the left end of the first row far left. To our left was an upright chair, then a dressing table with stool, then the corner was filled by the folding bed in the attic which was just in front of the cupboard door. Next to that was a bedside table with a small light, then the sitting room sofa with coffee table in front, then a space for a doorway, then a bedside table next to the master bedroom double bed which was on the diagonal, then another doorway, then another armchair from the sitting room, then the third doorway right by us. To our right, and along the far side, there were banisters with strips of green carpet beside the set, and these had brass strips across them to represent stairs. From the ceiling hung two lights, a fancy one for the sitting room and a plain one that didn’t work (no bulb) for the attic. The action took place on all three levels, often at the same time, and the actors did a lovely jogging movement to indicate that they were going up and down stairs. The amazing thing is that it worked so well – we always knew where people were, and even when the set was crowded they managed to keep out of each other’s way. Alan Ayckbourn commented on this during the post-show, explaining that the actors’ movements had to be planned carefully so they didn’t all try to go through the same doorway at the same time.

Other gems from the post-show: Ayckbourn doesn’t do rewrites. Actually he did one for this production – we were the first to hear the changed word! The script referred to Foxtons as a business within the world of the play. As it’s also the name of a local estate agent, he changed it to Scanstons for this run. He also told us that when he was starting out, not yet twenty years old, everyone thought they knew how to make his plays work better, even the theatre cleaners. He had to work hard to keep things as he wanted them. Once he was successful, and got a reputation, people started taking the text too seriously, even memorising the misprints. He’d had to correct someone when they read a line wrong because the text had a mistake in it.

He was asked if he’d ever suffered from writers block. He told us that for a short time after his stroke, a couple of weeks say, he hadn’t had any ideas in his head at all. As he works by letting ideas develop in the back of his mind, sometimes for years, this was a frightening experience. But one morning he woke up, and an idea was floating around in there, so he knew he was alright.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Six Degrees Of Separation – February 2010

6/10

By John Guare

Directed by David Grindley

Venue: Old Vic Theatre

Date: Wednesday 17th February 2010

We’d seen this years ago with Stockard Channing and Adrian Lester, and apart from bits of the story, what I remember most from that production was the cynical humour, showing up the high flyers in New York society as vain, superficial and gullible. This production was much nicer to the socialites, and with the cultural references dating the play so quickly, perhaps that was inevitable. Steve rated this higher than I did, based on the excellent performances and the overall quality of the production. I agree with him on all of that, I just find the piece too insubstantial to rate it any higher.

The set was simple, with a sofa and table on the revolve, starting with its back to the audience, a double-sided Kandinsky hung at the back and rotating gently before the start, and four curved wall sections that sneakily backed away at one point (I didn’t notice them moving) to open the stage up. Two side walls had the main entrances and the main colour was a plush warm red, with the sofa in green. The inkwell and the dog picture that the husband is concerned about at the start are dangled over the side of the balcony (or box?) to right and left, and spotlit, so we won’t miss them.

The story concerns a young black man who cons his way into rich people’s apartments by pretending to be the son of Sidney Poitier. He’s very charming, talks knowledgeably about Catcher In The Rye, and gets small sums of money from his hosts. When the Kitteridges find out he’s also brought a rent boy into the house for some casual sex, they’re horrified (of the ‘we could all have been murdered in our beds’ kind).

There’s a lot of humour in the situation as the couples discover a number of them have been taken in, and when they try to report the incidents to the police, they realise that no actual crime has been committed. A little more investigation on the parents’ part brings their kids into the play – sulky teenagers or what! The shock expressed by one of them that they gave away his pink shirt was good fun, though I think that bit went on a little too long. The prospect of the children narrowing down their friends to a small group of suspects by looking for drug addicts, alcoholics, homosexuals and similar brought suitably contemptuous responses. As if!

Ms Kitteridge soon figured out who to talk to, a chap who was now at MIT, and she got the full story of Paul’s start on his career of non-crime. The MIT chap bribed Paul to have sex with him by teaching him how to speak and behave, and feeding him all the information about his classmates’ families that Paul would use later to carry out his con trick.

When these families go public, Paul has to change tack, and now he cons a young couple from Utah, up in New York to make it big. This time, he tells them he’s Mr Kitteridge’s illegitimate and unacknowledged son, living in Central Park, and trying to get in to see his father. They offer him a bed, he cons the guy out of their savings after the woman has turned him down, and then spends the money treating himself and Utah guy to a great night out at the Rainbow followed by sex. Realising what’s happened, Utah guy throws himself off a building (took me a while to get that it was him), and with Utah woman making a complaint, the police finally have something to go on.

When Paul makes a phone call to the Kitteridges, they, or rather Mrs Kitteridge, persuade him to wait where he is; they will come and pick him up and take him to the police themselves. She makes all sorts of promises to him, as his fantasies are rampant, and although he clearly has brains and charm we can see he needs a lot of help if he’s going to be able to use his talents. Mr Kitteridge, much less tolerant than his wife, lets the police know where Paul is, and with heavy traffic delaying them, the Kitteridges arrive too late.

Since they’re not family, and don’t know Paul’s real name, Mrs Kitteridge can’t find out what happened to Paul. She hears, some months later, that a young man hanged himself in prison using a pink shirt, and while she’s telling us this, we see Paul walking along the top of the wall towards the picture. I think when he gets there, he points at it, and smiles at the audience. Lights.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

My Wonderful Day – January 2010

6/10

Written and directed by Alan Ayckbourn

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 29th January 2010

I missed the last half hour of this – making us go an hour and three quarters without an interval was a step too far for me, especially in this cold weather. Still, I got a pretty good idea of the production with what I saw, and while it’s not Ayckbourn’s best, it does have some funny moments and one truly outstanding performance.

The set was basic black, with venetian blinds everywhere instead of walls, and three distinct house areas – lounge in the middle, kitchen to the left and possibly study(?) to the right. The lighting established each one, and a row of diamond lights showed us the corridors. Despite Laverne extolling the loveliness of the house, the cheap plastic coffee table and uncomfortable-looking settee suggested something much more downmarket – I’ve no idea if that was intentional.

The plot is simple, although it took me a while to get the hang of Laverne’s delivery, so I may have missed some salient points. Laverne does for Kevin and Paula, and she’s turned up to do her stint one day with her nine year old daughter Winnie in tow. It just so happens that this is the day when Kevin becomes aware that his marriage has imploded.

Winnie is off school because she’s ill, though many doctors might struggle to diagnose her condition. She tries her best to sit quietly and do her homework – an essay entitled ‘my wonderful day’ – but is constantly being interrupted by various adults. It’s a Tuesday, and on Tuesdays she and her mother speak French, so although her mother has claimed an exemption while she’s working, Winnie’s expected to talk in French, which leads to some predictable fun and games.

Kevin is trying to find out what’s happened to Paula, and in the process utters some language not normally considered suitable for young ears. His secretary/lover Tiffany has turned up, and in an attempt to protect Winnie, takes her off to the study. After some rather tedious revelations about her own loneliness, she decides to show Winnie a short film that Kevin has made, advertising the merits of a retail/business complex. Unfortunately, Paula got there first, and so after a few minutes (mercifully soon), the film changes to an expose by an embittered wife of her husband’s infidelity and shady business practices. At least, I assume the shady business practices would have been exposed – Tiffany stopped the DVD as fast as she could once the revelation about Kevin and her being sexually involved popped out.

The rest of the play concerned Laverne going off to hospital to have her next baby (she was due in ten days, so not that early), and the resulting effect on the remaining adults of having a nine year old kid to look after. From the laughter I could hear, I clearly missed the best bits, so perhaps I can catch this again on its tour.

Steve did tell me the rest of the story when he got out, but I won’t put it here as I’ve not experienced it myself. The performances were all good, of course, but I did think Ayesha Antoine as Winnie simply stole the show. She was totally believable as a nine-year-old kid, and the expressions on her face while Tiffany was absorbed in the DVD were priceless.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall – October 2009

6/10

Based on the war memoirs of Spike Milligan, adapted for the stage by Ben Power and Tim Carroll

Directed by Tim Carroll

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Saturday 24th October 2009

This was a wonderful music-and-humour-fest of Spike Milligan’s writings, at least the part relating to his war experiences. The singing and dancing were superb, the humour was patchy, but still very good, and the anarchic style fitted very well with the style of the writing. My biggest problem was that I simply couldn’t make out a lot of the lines, as some of them were spoken, or even shouted while the band was playing, and this either drowned out the words or made them hard to distinguish. It seemed to be easier during the second half – don’t know if this was because they changed the balance or because we were more adjusted to it.

There was one bit of audience participation during the second half – trepidation amongst those of us (like me!) foolish enough to sit on the centre aisle – but a lovely young lady called Genevieve was tonight’s lucky participant. She correctly guessed, by looking at a playing card, which card it was! Much applause.

All the cast were hugely talented, of course, but the central role of Spike was played by a newcomer, Sholto Morgan, and if this is anything to go by, he’s got a great career ahead of him. Sadly, talent alone is not enough, so I just hope he gets the breaks he deserves. He conveyed Spike’s gangliness and wide-eyed innocent mischievousness brilliantly, as well as playing a mean trumpet.

I suspect the wide open spaces of the Festival Theatre may have been a bit too much for this production – perhaps the Minerva would have suited it better? – but at least it got a good audience, who were very appreciative of both the fun and the talent on display. Good luck for the rest of the run.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Round The Horne – September 2009

8/10

By Barry Took and Marty Feldman

Directed by ??

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 18th September 2009

Another fun instalment of this comedy series, which may end up running longer on stage than it did on the radio. This time, the band was on stage – that is, in the studio with them – and they brought on some singers to do the usual musical interludes that comedy shows had in those days. This was fine, but it did mean less time for the funny bits and I felt Julian and Sandy, in particular, were cut cruelly short in both halves.

Even so it was a bona evening out, and I hope they keep it going as long as they can.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me