Category Archives: Comedy

Black Comedy – July 2014

Preview Performance

Experience: 7/10

By Peter Shaffer

Directed by Jamie Glover

(Paired with Miss Julie)

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Monday 7th July 2014

We stayed in the Minerva for the interval after Miss Julie to see the set being changed. There was a lot to do; they had to move from the kitchen of a country estate in 19th century Sweden to an impecunious artist’s flat in 1960s London in fifteen minutes. The existing set was cleared, with some of the back wall sections being turned around to provide additional wall parts for the new set. The biggest item they brought on was a large piece of construction which had the bedroom upstairs and a screened off studio area underneath; getting this into the right position took some time. With that placed correctly, the rest of the set could be sorted out, which involved placing lots of chairs, a patchwork of rugs, the stairs up to the bedroom and many paintings plus a tree-like sculpture. The door was in the same place as before, but that was the only similarity to the previous set which I could spot. There was also a telephone on the floor on the left side of the stage, a chaise centre back and a wooden block at the very front of the stage on which stood a brightly-coloured Buddha statue.

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A Small Family Business – July 2014

Experience: 9/10

By Alan Ayckbourn

Directed by Adam Penford

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Saturday 5th July 2014

Nice to see this one again. We saw the original National production in 1987, and the revival at Chichester in 2000; both were good, but this was probably our favourite. The individual performances were all excellent, and with several Ayckbourn regulars in the cast they brought out the humour perfectly. Overall I felt this was a lighter version of the play; the story became a bit darker towards the end, but it wasn’t as dark as either of the earlier productions.

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The Roaring Girl – May 2014

Experience: 7/10

By Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton

Directed by Jo Davies

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Tuesday 27th May 2014

It’s over thirty years since we saw the previous RSC production of this play, and for all that it starred Helen Mirren in the title role, I can’t remember a thing about it. Those were early days in my Jacobethan immersion, so the unfamiliar language, odd characters and many and varied plot twists would have been harder to follow. Now that I’m much more conversant with the genre, I hoped I would find the plot easier to grasp, and it was indeed a much more rewarding experience. The language still caught me out a bit, mind you, so I’ll be keen to read the text before we see it again, but the production itself was very good fun, and it was lovely to see a number of the usual suspects back again for another season.

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Fallen Angels – March 2014

Experience: 7/10

By Noel Coward

Directed by Roy Marsden

Presented by Bill Kenwright

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Thursday 13th March 2014

I have no recollection of seeing this play before, but both Steve and our records show that I did, back in 1982. That production clearly didn’t make much of an impression; this one did a lot better. The plot soon reminded me of The Merry Wives Of Windsor – I don’t know if that was Coward’s intention, but he’s written a very funny mirror-image version of that play in a similar vein to Rattigan’s Less Than Kind. (Funnily enough, the recent production we saw of that play also starred Sarah Crowe.) There are two postcards with identical content and two wives whose marriages have become rather dull over time. When a flame from their pre-marriage past announces his intention to visit, their libidos kick in and anything can happen. Unlike the Merry Wives, these two have every intention of being ‘fallen angels’, but with complications galore, neither gets the chance – at least, not before the curtain falls.

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The Man Of Destiny – February 2014

Experience: 6/10

By George Bernard Shaw

Directed by Michael Friend

Michael Friend Productions

Venue: Mill Studio

Date: Friday 28th February 2014

This little-seen Shaw play was paired with another one-act piece by the same author, The Fascinating Foundling. They were both amusing, and while the Foundling was like a Gilbertian mini-farce, Man Of Destiny had a bit more to it, and we could certainly see the influence of Arms And The Man in the discussions between Napoleon and the Strange Lady. We were glad to have caught this performance, especially as we’re not likely to see these anywhere else.

The set consisted of a wide swathe of green carpet, suggestive of grass, a backdrop showing a large house with one wing coming forward on the left side, a doorway in the appropriate place on that side and a table with two chairs in the middle of the stage; the table was laid with some plates and a glass. There was a bench on the left with a bottle on it and another bench tucked away in the far right corner. I wasn’t sure if the space was indoors or outdoors – the program specifies the courtyard of an inn, which would account for the ambiguity.

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The Time Of My Life – January 2014

Experience: 7/10

Written and directed by Alan Ayckbourn

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 24th January 2014

I’m not sure if we saw this play during the original run or on a later tour – the records are in our personal Bermuda Triangle – but I remembered the setup if not the details very soon after it started. The location was a restaurant, and the occasion a birthday party for wife and mother Laura. The rest of the party included her husband Gerry, her sons Glyn and Adam, Glyn’s pregnant wife Stephanie and Adam’s girlfriend/fiancée Maureen. The waiters, all played by Ben Porter, were part of the occasion too, as the family had been coming to that restaurant for many years.

The main table for the party was placed centrally towards the back of the stage on a raised level. There were steps down on either side of this platform and two more tables on the lower floor, one on each side of the stage. These were used for inserted scenes which showed us the relationships of the two sons and their respective partners, one pair going forward in time from the party and the other going back to their first meeting. It might sound confusing, but Ayckbourn is a master at taking the audience anywhere he wants them to go, and we’re always very willing to take these trips with him.

The opening scene was a jumble of dialogue, leading up to Maureen having to rush off to be sick. The party broke up shortly after this, with Glyn and Stephanie heading off home and Adam and Maureen leaving as well. Laura and Gerry stayed for a while longer, topping up the coffee and, as the arguments began and the revelations started to come out, topping up on brandy as well. Ernesto, the proprietor (also played by Ben Porter) joined them at one point for more alcohol and some drunken reminiscences, so when Laura and Gerry finally did leave they were both well over the limit.

The details of what happened after the party emerged through the intervening scenes with Glyn and Stephanie, and we saw them go through a number of changes in their relationship as well as hearing about the changes in the other characters’ lives. At the other table, Adam and Maureen’s relationship went back through their various meetings until their first encounter, when Adam mistook Maureen for a prostitute (it’s a long story). Both couples were haunted by a singing waiter (Ben Porter again) while Stephanie was constantly being encouraged to eat more by one of the other waiters. She kept refusing until an emotional event triggered a sudden desire to stuff her face with just about every dessert from the trolley!

The play ended with the beginning of the birthday party, and Ernesto showing Laura and Gerry to their table. It was an appropriate way to finish, similar in many ways to Time And The Conways, but this play isn’t as strong as Priestley’s. It was pleasant enough, and the actors all did good work, but the stories were a bit too predictable. Not Ayckbourn’s best piece, but as it turned out it was a very good companion to his new play Arrivals And Departures, and as always, it was fun to see the same group of actors playing very different roles.

© 2014 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

 

September In The Rain – November 2013

Experience: 6/10

Written and directed by John Godber

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 22nd November 2013

This is not John Godber’s strongest piece. It’s a two-hander full of reminiscences of earlier days, the 1950s in particular, and times spent together on Blackpool beach by Liz and Jack. They’re an elderly couple, based on Godber’s own grandparents, and they’d spent many of the family holidays in Blackpool over the years. We got to see them back as they were, recalling the events of some memorable Septembers on the West coast, getting soaked in the rain and occasionally having some fun. Personally I thought the fun was in not having to relive the events, given the amount of arguing and fighting that went on. And not just between the two of them; Jack was quick to use his fists in those days.

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream – November 2013

Experience: 8/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Edward Hall

Company: Propeller

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Tuesday 12th November 2013

Steve saw this production in 2003 in London. I say ‘saw’; an extremely large American chap blocked his view for the first half, and Steve was rather pleased when he didn’t come back after the interval. As we were in the front row tonight, there was no risk of a repeat, although I was a bit concerned about the extent of audience participation when I realised I was right beside one lot of steps up to the stage. I needn’t have worried though; apart from a flying button and some glitter, we were unmolested all night.

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Liolà – November 2013

Experience: 8/10

By Luigi Pirandello, adapted by Tanya Ronder

Directed by Richard Eyre

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Wednesday 6th November 2013

This was a very good production and an excellent adaptation too; well worth the trip up to see it. We took our seats very close to the off today, as a body in front of a train at Wimbledon had shut off our usual route to the National: change at Clapham for Waterloo. But the Victoria line was still open, and we had just enough time to get to the National the long way round. As a result, we missed some of the foreplay, but did arrive in time to see the central platform on the stage being cleaned by a group of women using foot cloths.

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The Duck House – November 2013

Experience: 8/10

By Dan Patterson and Colin Swash

Directed by Terry Johnson

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud

Date: Friday 1st November 2013

This was cracking fun. We had a good view of the performance from our seats to the right of the auditorium, despite being warned that our sightline might be obscured in some way during one scene, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Although most of the topical references related to the expenses scandal, they didn’t seem out of date at all (sadly) and some of the other quips were very funny – references to getting a lift home from Chris Huhne, for example. I won’t give away too much, but the funniest gag for me came early on, when the Labour politician Robert Houston (Ben Miller) was filing away his receipts for a future expense claim. One box was getting a bit full, so he used another location which was a bit unexpected, and very funny.

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