Review – Mrs Warren’s Profession, Festival Theatre, Chichester, 1st December 2022

Posted on December 5, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

You’ve heard the phrase, gentle reader, The Show Must Go On; well, the Chichester Festival Theatre took that to new heights last week during their turn to show the Theatre Royal Bath touring production of Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession. The big selling point for this show is that real-life mother and daughter Caroline and Rose Quentin are playing fictional mother and daughter Mrs Kitty and Miss Vivie Warren. The family likeness and the real-life connection between the two would give extra frisson to Shaw’s sparring exchanges between Kitty and Vivie.

Great in theory; however, sadly, last week Caroline Quentin was indisposed with some horrible lurgy. Good news: she had an understudy. Bad news: the understudy was also off sick. Tuesday’s performance was cancelled, but the cavalry arrived in the form of Charlie Ives, who is the understudy for the part of Vivie, who boldly saw the show through, book unobtrusively in hand, enabling us all to enjoy a great night at the theatre. Yes, we had to suspend disbelief that this young actor was old enough to be Vivie’s mother, but theatre’s all about pretence, isn’t it? And I really commend the Chichester Theatre for giving patrons the option of swapping their seats for a performance later in the week or having a credit or refund. That’s going beyond the call of duty. There’s never a guarantee that any one performer will be able to appear at any one performance. So Bravo to Chichester, and a huge Bravo to Charlie Ives. More of the performances later….

“Shaw, who understood everything save the human heart.” That was the title of the essay I had to write in my first year at university, trying to work out where Shaw’s strengths and weaknesses lie. It is odd how Shaw pussyfoots around the subject of sex; he’s perfectly comfortable with second-hand allusions to the extra-marital how’s your father between Kitty and the Reverend Samuel, because we don’t have to see it. But when it comes to Frank and Vivie, together in front of our noses, he goes all coy and childlike, with Frank’s most explicit suggestion being that they cuddle up together under a pile of leaves. No wonder Vivie’s unimpressed.

The ”human heart” element apart, this remains a thoroughly engrossing and ever relevant play, with Mrs Warren’s actual profession never being explicitly mentioned – but clearly, she’s a madam of a brothel with branches all over Europe and an excellent businesswoman to boot; making enough money to drag herself out of childhood poverty to pay for a fine education for her daughter. That fine education has created a Thoroughly Modern Vivie, who admires her mother for her tenacity and resilience, and can even tolerate knowledge of the profession itself. What she can’t take is that her mother is still active in the business. Rather like Shaw’s treatment of the past liaison between Kitty and the Rev, it’s ok whilst it’s in the past, but not ok when it’s in the present.

There’s an enormously telling speech from the horrendous Sir George Crofts where he reveals to Vivie, “do you remember your Crofts scholarship at Newnham? Well, that was founded by my brother the M.P. He gets his 22 per cent out of a factory with 600 girls in it, and not one of them getting wages enough to live on. How d’ye suppose they manage when they have no family to fall back on? Ask your mother.” Everything has its price, and there’s a price to pay for everything. Prostitution is/was an ugly word, ugly enough to cause the censor to prohibit the public performance of the play for over thirty years. But it pays the bills. And today there are tens of thousands of people in proper jobs but not earning enough to live on. Plus ça change…

David Woodhead has designed an effective but relatively simple set (great for touring) with the first three acts set firmly in the outdoors, with Vivie’s house and the Reverend Samuel’s church both almost comically tiny and bijou, to be replaced in the final act by the very workaday and unglamorous offices where Vivie works. Anthony Banks directs the play with laudable straightforwardness – Shaw’s words do all the talking in this piece.

Sadly, as you will realise, I can’t comment on Caroline Quentin’s performance, but Rose Quentin (who looks remarkably like Caroline did in Men Behaving Badly), is terrific as Vivie, direct, determined, but occasionally letting us see the vulnerability she strives to conceal. Simon Shepherd is excellent as the slimy Crofts, oozing his way around the stage in the hope of attracting Vivie, and the ever-reliable Matthew Cottle is also great as the Reverend who is full of fallibility. I thought Stephen Rahman-Hughes struggled a little to find the role of Praed; it’s not an easy role because Shaw doesn’t give you much to go on. But Peter Losasso is superb as the likeable but wet Frank, a waster and a parasite but such pleasant company.

But in our performance the night belonged to Charlie Ives. Taking on the role of Kitty with such short notice, she threw herself into the play with gusto, giving us all the character’s brassy confidence, mother-from-hell-type bossiness, but still with a great sense of humour and a definite twinkle in her eye; 80% of the time you totally forgot that she wasn’t Caroline Quentin and was reading the script and she definitely held the evening together, rather than her supporting cast holding it together for her – if that make sense. I admit, we were tempted to cancel seeing the show, and taking the theatre’s generous offer of a credit. But I am so glad we didn’t. A very good production of a still very relevant play, it continues its tour through to April 2023.

Production photos by Pamela Raith

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – Woman in Mind, Festival Theatre, Chichester, 8th October 2022

Posted on October 17, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

Some plays, gentle reader, hold an immense and hugely significant place in a person’s heart. I can cast my mind back to December 1986, when Mrs Chrisparkle (Miss Duncansby as she was then) and I saw Woman in Mind, starring the perfectly cast Julia McKenzie and Martin Jarvis, at London’s Vaudeville Theatre for her birthday treat. We needed the time together as the previous weekend we had got engaged but the Dowager Mrs C had a pink fit at the news and spent the next X weeks/months/years taking it out on us. Sigh. The play was memorable not only for the insight into the mind of the leading character, Susan, but also my mother’s; no wonder it’s always been a significant play for us. And that is why I had been looking forward to seeing this revival all summer long!

Susan is found, dazed, possibly concussed, definitely confused, in the garden, by semi-retired Doctor Bill; he’s clearly concerned that her mind is not working as it should be, although she is perfectly confident that there’s nothing wrong at all. He goes off to get her some tea, and she is joined by her husband, brother, and daughter, all impeccably turned out for an afternoon of champers and tennis; they also reassure her nothing is wrong – all that happened was that she had stood on the garden rake and knocked herself out like some Tom and Jerry cartoon – what is she like??!! But if that’s her impossibly handsome husband, with her impossibly handsome brother and impossibly beautiful daughter, who is this grumpy old vicar with his crotchety old sister who keep barging in on her in the garden? We quickly learn that all is not well in Susan’s mind, and you can’t trust anything that you, or she, sees.

Alan Ayckbourn has written so many extraordinary plays in his lifetime that you can’t restrain him to just one masterpiece. But of all his masterpieces, this is surely one of the most masterful. His intricate plot weaving, his fooling with the audience as to what is real and what isn’t, his extraordinary understanding of a mind under pressure, of a disappointing marriage and of just how delicately to tread the balance between total hilarity and ghastly cruelty create a work of amazing tenderness and insight. It flips between pure joy and pure hell, even within the course of a sentence. Dismiss Ayckbourn as a serious writer at your peril – this is the real deal.

The special trick with this play is how Ayckbourn depicts the fact that a troubled mind can take individual facts, words, phrases, or ideas that one comes across in conversation and mix them together in an attempt to make some unified sense of them all. This enables the play to come to a riotous final scene of absolute mayhem as Susan’s subconscious pieces together nuggets of information to create a ludicrous whole that makes us laugh but disturbs her deeply; hence that perilous balance between joy and hell.

Sadly Anna Mackmin’s exquisite production has now closed, so you can’t now go and see it for yourself. If you did miss it, you really do need to kick yourself! Lez Brotherston (who else?) created a set that suggests a small patch of lawn as part of a much larger, glamorous garden; alternatively it could just be a small patch that hasn’t been nurtured and cared for as much as it deserved. Mark Henderson’s lighting creates a deep warm glow whenever Susan’s mind veers into the fantastical and returns to unadorned daylight with the harshness of reality. It’s a helpful key if you’re ever unsure as to whether what we’re seeing is real or not.

Jenna Russell was superb as Susan; the character is never off stage, as she showed us all Susan’s bewilderment, frustration, sarcasm, and the sheer hell into which she is descending; but also all the light, warmth, and kindness of the character that is being lost as her own grip on reality is declining. Nigel Lindsay was also excellent as her (real) husband Gerald, a vicar with little sense of kindness or tact, and who had given up on their relationship to spend hours researching the history of the parish.

Long-time Chichester regular Matthew Cottle was perfect as the kind but ineffectual Doctor Bill, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his own marriage was on the rocks but determined to do the best for his temporary patient; a kindness that Susan responds to as Bill starts to become part of her extra-marital fantasy. Stephanie Jacob was hilarious as the morose and vengeful Muriel, constantly imagining that her late husband Harry was sending her signs from Heaven that he still loved her. And there was excellent support from the rest of the cast including Marc Elliott as the idyllically desirable Andy – loving, handsome and a dab hand in the kitchen – and Flora Higgins as “daughter” Lucy, on her professional stage debut.

Mrs C’s eyes weren’t the only ones in the theatre that were a little moist at the end of the show. A production of a first rate play, staged with great conviction, wonderful understanding, and terrific performances. A privilege to have seen it – and it would be brilliant if the production could have a life after Chichester.

Production photos by Johan Persson

Five Alive, Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – Habeas Corpus, Menier Chocolate Factory, London, 16th January 2022

Posted on January 18, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

Here’s another show that’s been a long time a-coming. I booked to see Patrick Marber’s new production of Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus back in March 2020, roughly the weekend before Lockdown 1.0 kicked in. Fortunately those nice people at the Menier were very diligent about making sure I got the same seats I originally booked, now that the production has finally come to light and I must say the staff at the Menier have been brilliant with their customer care during this period. Hats off to you!

Habeas Corpus first opened at the Lyric Theatre in May 1973 with a most enviable cast: Alec Guinness, Margaret Courtenay, Phyllida Law, Patricia Hayes, Joan Sanderson, Madeline Smith, Andrew Sachs, John Bird to name but eight; each one a master/mistress of stage comedy. Patrick Marber’s new production also gets excellent comedy skills out of his cast which really keeps the pace of this play going – but more of the cast later.

May 1973. There’s a Girl in my Soup was just ending its seven year run, No Sex Please We’re British was two years into its extraordinary sixteen year run. The sauciness of Ray Cooney was all the rage. The strapline to this production reads “a filthy farce from a less enlightened age”. From the moment Dr Wicksteed flamboyantly whips off his surgical mask, you know you have been transported back from relatively careworn 2022 to relatively carefree 1973 (the three-day week hadn’t kicked in yet). Perhaps it also symbolises the removal of the mask where it comes to relationships – no more decorum, let’s play it real and dirty. According to the programme, Alan Bennett wrote the play as “an attempt to write farce without the paraphernalia of farce – hiding places, multiple exits and umpteen doors”. As such it is pretty successful. The uncluttered stage at the Menier indeed has no doors, although it does have one hiding place – behind the coffin, that ostentatiously sits in the centre of the stage throughout the whole performance without any member of the cast realising there’s a coffin among them. I can only presume it’s another symbol – of everyone’s eventual death; and that maybe it’s the spur for everyone to get as much sexual shenanigans going as they can before the Grim Reaper steps in. A re-invention of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music song The Miller’s Son for repressed fifty-somethings, perhaps.

And eventually the coffin does get used for something other than a makeshift bed or table, as it opens ceremoniously at the end of the play to welcome the philandering GP Arthur Wicksteed to his eternal rest. Faithful to the original Bennett, we see Arthur dancing furiously to save his life, and the scene does create a fitting bookend to the beginning of the play, where Arthur confides in us that he spends his whole time as a doctor telling his patients they’re going to live – when in fact they’re not.

Ah yes – confiding. That’s how this whole play is structured. Most of the time the characters are breaking the fourth wall and confiding in us, serially delivering asides in our direction. Their interaction with each other is comedy pantomime, but the truth is largely only shared directly with the audience. At first this is a very amusing convention, with cleaning lady Mrs Swabb acting as a game-show host introducing the characters, discussing their ages and hobbies; blink and you could be watching Double Your Money or Take Your Pick. But after a while, I really tired of this approach, although the characters definitely don’t! Bennett plunges us into a surreal world populated with people who are either not getting any sex, not getting enough sex or not getting the sex they want. During the course of the play, people change partners, get caught out, are confronted with reality; past sins catch up with them, future hopes are dashed. It’s a stark and unglossy view of life and love, and at the end, the outlook is bleak for everyone. For a sex comedy, this is a pretty surreal one.

Sex comedies. They don’t write them anymore. New farces are also few and far between, and it’s fascinating that they are currently so out of favour; they worked so well for the likes of George Feydeau, Ben Travers and Brian Rix. So when you see a play like Habeas Corpus it really stops you in your tracks. Was it really “a less enlightened age”? It made me wonder if it was possibly more enlightened in some ways. There is nothing (nearly nothing) about Habeas Corpus that is remotely offensive, and none of its subject matter comes close to anything in the works of Joe Orton, for example. Sure, it’s all about sex and death, but then, isn’t Hamlet? If anything, looking back on a hit sex comedy from fifty years ago makes you realise that actually they weren’t that daring or that un-PC after all; if anything, you rather hoped it might be more outrageous.

The funniest – and probably filthiest – scene is where the doctor’s wife is mistaken for his sister; the latter has invested in some false boobs to make her look sexier and is visited by the man from Leatherhead who ensures (naturally) they have been properly fitted. Unfortunately he is (erroneously) extremely impressed by the doctor’s wife’s chesty presence and feels her up (to her delight) albeit with purely academic interest. Naturally the man from Leatherhead spends the rest of the play in his underpants, because – well, why wouldn’t you? The double-joke is that whilst the wife is turned on by the boob-fondling fitter, he’s only doing it from a purely professional point of view and has no interest in any subsequent sexual advances. Of course, the randy woman/meek man comedy combination is frequently the source of comedy gold – think George and Mildred, or Victoria Wood’s song about Freda and Barry. It’s timeless.

Timeless; but nevertheless there is something about this production that doesn’t work for me, and feels strangely irrelevant to life in the 2020s. Certainly one aspect is that today we don’t look on someone trying to hang themselves as a source of humour. That difference is very stark, and you feel very uncomfortable when presented with it on stage to laugh at. I also think the central figure of the cleaning lady, constantly commenting on the action, feels very much of a bygone era; that type of role was more or less killed off with the appearance of Dotty Otley/Mrs Clackett in Noises Off, or, again citing Victoria Wood, Mrs Overall. And then, you’ve got all those very artificial asides, which really do wear you down after a while!

Despite all these niggles, it is still an entertaining and enjoyable show. It uses 70s pop music to great effect – I ended up singing Sweet’s Wig Wam Bam to myself for the rest of the day and I’ll never think of Hocus Pocus by Focus in the same way ever again. There’s an excellent central performance by Jasper Britton as Wicksteed, revealing his sexual peccadillos to us whilst concealing them from everyone else on stage; it’s a performance full of energy and impishness. Catherine Russell is also excellent as his wife Muriel, channelling her inner Patricia Routledge (there’s a lot of Hyacinth Bouquet and Kitty in there) with a frostiness that gives way to sheer sensual pleasure. Ria Jones, in her straight play debut, brings a huge amount of character to Mrs Swabb, a slave to her Hoover.

Dan Starkey is brilliant as the pompous and bossy Sir Percy, fighting his short-man syndrome, Matthew Cottle perfect as the frustrated and not terribly forgiving Canon Throbbing, and there’s an excellent supporting performance by Abdul Salis as Shanks, the man from Leatherhead, horrified at being used as a sex object. But everyone puts in a very good performance and keeps the show moving at a cracking pace. It’s fascinating to have the opportunity to see a comedy like this, firmly from a different era, but in a modern context; it informs our understanding of its own time better than it does of our current times; but, let’s face it, nostalgia is always irresistible!

Production photos by Manuel Harlan

Nice and three-sy does it!

P. S. Tomorrow, it’s the Eleventh Annual Chrisparkle Awards! Exciting – will your favourites be amongst the winners?

Review – The Deep Blue Sea, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 27th July 2019

Posted on July 29, 2019 by therealchrisparkle

One of our favourite annual treats is to enjoy a weekend in Chichester with friends and family, seeing a couple of shows, having a lovely lunch in the Minerva Brasserie, followed by late night sharing boards in the Minerva Grill, and a scrummy Sunday breakfast at the Spires Café. Well, we did all of those things last weekend. It was great.

You want more detail? I guess I should be more specific about the plays we saw. For the matinee, we had tickets to see Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea. Perhaps surprisingly, this is the second Chichester production of this play in eight years; we saw Philip Franks’ production in 2011, and it was thoroughly engrossing; a simple tale, told simply. But I have a memory that it was swamped by the largesse of the Festival Theatre; would a more intimate production in the Minerva be more successful? (Answer: Yes.)

The play was first produced in 1952, at a time when Britain was still attempting to shake off the drabness of Second World War rationing, drabness and general gloom. Men had come back from the war with what we would now know as PTSD, many struggling to find a way to fit back into life and with many women accordingly finding it difficult to cope with their menfolk. Clearly, unless you were a) well-off and b) remarkably well adjusted, it was a tense time for all. Whether it was in a sudden blaze of passion or a slowly-burning sense of growing desire we’re never really sure, but what we do know is that Hester Collyer had thrown away her life as a judge’s wife, with all its comfort, status and solidity, and run off with a ne’er-do-well alcoholic, Freddie Page, who’d been a pilot in the war.

But when the fun, danger and ardour of their affair starts to wane, there’s not much left for Hester to enjoy in life, and the play, famously, starts with her being rescued from a suicide attempt (by gassing herself in front of the fire) by her landlady and neighbours. If she’d had put a shilling in the meter, she’d be dead. The rest of the play examines Hester’s life over the course of one day; from a semi-reconciliation with her husband, desperate niggling arguments with her boyfriend, and reaching an understanding with another of the residents, Mr Miller (not Doctor, please), in whom she sees a fellow recipient of life’s great booby-prize. When it’s time to turn the lights out at the end of the day, will she resist the temptation to make good her suicide attempt of the previous night? If you don’t know the answer to that, I’m not going to tell you!

This is one of those plays that it’s impossible to update; in fact, the stronger you can build up that distinct post-war, 1950s poverty-filled London gloom, the better. Peter McKintosh’s set successfully conjures up a claustrophobic prison of a flat at the top of the stairs in a big multiple-occupancy house, where the landlady Mrs Elton (a nicely judged performance by Denise Black) spends morning, noon and night in pinny and housecoat, perpetually attending to the needs of her tenants, hearing their secrets and then blabbing about them to the neighbours. The all-important gas fire sits starkly against one side of the stage, an ugly, functional installation with no pretence to homely cosiness, quietly reminding us all of its power to end a life.

This new production stars Nancy Carroll as Hester Collyer, in an excellent performance that makes you feel that, if only the stars had aligned slightly differently, this Hester would have had a life of glamour and refinement. With an air of calm, resigned resilience, it’s a remarkably spirited portrayal of a suicidal character – she seems to get over it all rather quickly, and rises to the challenges of the day with surprising strength. By contrast, Hadley Fraser’s Freddie Page cuts a much more pathetic figure; a spoilt brat of a wastrel who’s relied on his looks to get him through but when times get tough has no inner resources to back it up. It’s another excellent performance, bringing out all the character’s immaturity and irresponsibility, as he organises long drinking sessions with his mates and refuses to take the blame for his contribution to Hester’s unhappiness. When the first Act finished I wanted to shout down to the stage, Leave him, Hester, he’s not worth it, hun, but I’m not sure if she would have taken my advice.

Reliable Chichester stalwart Matthew Cottle gives a strong, unsentimental performance as Miller, the once-doctor who still helps with medical advice in the household despite no longer being allowed to practise; although in seedy 1952 North West London, a resident medic would always be in demand. There’s also a toe-curlingly enjoyable scene between Hester and Ralph Davis’ Philp Welch, one of those agonisingly patronising moments when a younger man tries to explain to an older person where they’ve gone wrong in life and what they can do to turn things around. Keeping a lid on her frustration and annoyance, you sense it’s all Hester can do not to stuff the gas tube up his nose and shove a shilling in for good measure.

This production received generally excellent reviews and I can see why. Although the pace of the play is quite slow, the attention to detail is impressive, and the commitment and dignity of the performances is a delight, even if the horrors of what they’re going through isn’t. Its final performance was last Saturday night and I don’t know if it’s going to have a life hereafter…but it was a very enjoyable and thought-provoking production.

Production photos by Manuel Harlan

Review – The Chalk Garden, Chichester Festival Theatre, 9th June 2018

Posted on June 14, 2018 by therealchrisparkle

It’s that time of year again when a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of Chichester. We have three weekends lined up for the summer months, and on our first, we were accompanied by our friends the Lord Liverpool and the Countess of Cockfosters. Lunch, natch, was in the Minerva Brasserie; it wouldn’t be the same without it. Normally we would see whatever was on offer in the Minerva Theatre as the matinee entertainment of the day, followed by the evening performance in the Festival Theatre. But this time, in something of a volte face, this time we did it the other way around.

Enid Bagnold; that’s not a name you hear bandied about much these days. But she had quite a life, not only writing several books and plays including that old favourite, National Velvet, but she was a nurse in the First World War, married the chairman of Reuters, and one of her great-granddaughters is Political Wife and businesswoman Samantha Cameron. The Chalk Garden is her semi-autobiographical play, first produced in 1955. It was inspired by her Sussex garden at Rottingdean, in a house previously owned by the painter Burne-Jones. With post-war domestic arrangements in something of a turmoil, including coping with a three-year-old granddaughter, she advertised for a lady to come and help. No qualifications needed, she just knew she would find the right person when the right person came along. One day the family received a visit from an old friend, a judge; and the recently hired nanny became fascinated in him – but in a terrified way. This mysterious reaction gave Bagnold the idea of writing a play where a stranger with an unknown past comes into a domestic situation; and she wanted to find out all about what had happened in that stranger’s past. Hence Enid Bagnold is the real Mrs St Maugham, and Miss Madrigal is the fictional version of her unknown nanny.

Mrs St Maugham is woefully inadequate at keeping her granddaughter Laurel on the straight and narrow because she doesn’t want to – she wants her to be an expressive, free thinker; but we the audience can see she’s actually a rude, graceless, pain in the backside arsonist who needs some firmness in her upbringing. Mrs St Maugham has a garden where nothing grows; she has the desire for a beautiful garden but not the talent. Enter Miss Madrigal, of whom we know nothing, except that she can not only tend a chalk garden in a productive way but also develop the good qualities of the unruly child. But when she clearly recognises the Judge when he pops round for lunch, just what is the connection? You’ll have to watch the play to find out.

From today’s perspective, this might sound like a rather over-genteel, twee little play, all cucumber sandwiches and endearingly precocious children. Not a bit of it. This is a tough little play; gently lick the strawberries and cream off the surface of the plot and you’ll find rivets of steel holding it together. It’s written with all the hallmarks of a 1950s drawing room comedy but with added bite; many of the lines are not only acerbic, they have a thin veneer of violence to them. Bagnold clearly has a fascination for the criminal mind; and with some surprisingly muscular turns of phrase this is a play that delivers way more than it promises.

Whilst there’s a lot to discover beneath the surface of this play, there’s also the obvious attraction of what’s on the surface. Enter the auditorium of the Festival Theatre and you’ll find that designer Simon Higlett has truly gone to town to create an immaculate house and garden-type set. Pleasant but not luxurious furnishings; a distant peek into a workaday back garden; a busy corridor where visitors come and go; and of course, a superb recreation of the front part of the main garden. Personally, I like blank stages where you can let your imagination run riot; but, if you can’t have that, then go the complete opposite and create a meticulously imagined set where no attention to detail has been missed. Absolutely stunning.

Penelope Keith is the obvious attraction about this production, and I’d be lying if I said her heading the cast didn’t play a significant part in wanting to see this show. I’d seen her eight times previously, over the years, most recently back in 2010 in The Rivals, and she never fails to delight. A part like Mrs St Maugham is bread-and-butter to Ms Keith but she tackles it full on with her beautiful enunciations and absolutely wicked comic timing. She brings Mrs St Maugham to life with complete effortlessness; which I’m sure takes a great effort.

There are some terrific supporting performances too. Amanda Root is excellent as the deliberately unforthcoming Miss Madrigal; kind, assertive, practical and intriguing. Matthew Cottle also delivers a fine performance as the wheedling and put-upon servant Maitland; part of the family but never really quite “fully accepted” in matters of taste and grace. Oliver Ford Davies is very comfortable as the Judge; used to the finer things in life, including getting his own way, but very irked when having to defend himself or face up to his responsibilities. And there’s a nice performance from Emma Curtis as the demanding but controllable Laurel.

An excellent choice for a 50s revival, and definitely worth making the trip to the South Coast!

Production photos by Catherine Ashmore

Review – Communicating Doors, Menier Chocolate Factory, 7th June 2015

Posted on June 8, 2015 by therealchrisparkle

Hurrah for the theatre programme archive boxes in my study which quickly yielded up the programme for Alan Ayckbourn’s Communicating Doors, which Mrs Chrisparkle and I saw on Saturday 3rd February 1996 at the Savoy Theatre, with Miss Angela Thorne playing the part of Ruella. That’s almost twenty years ago. Maybe it isn’t a coincidence that twenty years have passed since the play first opened in the West End, as there are two periods of twenty years each that separate all three of the time scales in the play. But it’s not an epic staged over forty years, it all happens at the same time. Didn’t you know about that? Am I going too fast for you?

The scene is a grand suite at London’s Regal Hotel, in the year 2020. Poopay, a rather sassy visiting dominatrix has come to give aged and infirm client Reece a good going-over. Reece has other ideas for her though, getting her to witness his signature on a document where he confesses to have arranged the murder of both of his ex-wives. In an attempt to escape for her life, Poopay dashes through a communicating door in the hotel room, only to find that, rather than taking her to another room, it takes her back to the same room, only twenty years earlier. Thus she discovers Reece’s second wife Ruella on the eve of her murder (by his somewhat violent and wicked business partner Julian, as it happens). Once Poopay has cottoned on to what’s happening, it’s up to her to convince Ruella of the danger she is in. Fortunately, Ruella is a spirited sort who enjoys a challenge. Ruella discovers she too can go back another twenty years via the communicating door, to discover Reece and Jessica (Wife #1) on their honeymoon night. Can the three women gang up together to use time to their advantage, defeat evil and create some happy-ever-afters where the course of all three of their lives turns out beautifully? You’ll have to see the play to find out.

Ayckbourn’s play is a modern classic of the “playing with time” genre. It was J B Priestley who really explored this style all hammer and tongs in the 1930s and 40s. Among his time-plays are Dangerous Corner, I Have Been Here Before and of course An Inspector Calls, rather moody, melodramatic plays, all revolving around time-tricks that are impossible in real life, with Priestley often using the device to expose hypocrisy and wickedness. Whilst the threat of violence and death is not inconsiderable in Communicating Doors, cocking a respectful hat to Psycho in one scene, Ayckbourn’s version of the time-play is nevertheless a much jollier affair, played strictly for laughs, and you don’t have to gen up on any Einsteinian time theories in advance. But I’m sure Priestley would have loved it all the same.

For this production, the wonderfully flexible Menier space has been set up as a traditional proscenium arch, creating a very wide stage perfect for the grandeur of a five star hotel suite. Whilst the main living room area of the suite has a timeless appearance, it is perhaps stretching credulity that the ensuite appearance and tiling would be the same in 1980 as it is in 2020. But then I can’t believe I’m actually looking for consistency in bathroom fittings over a period of forty years when the play itself is a complete flight of nonsense from start to finish.

It’s often been said that Ayckbourn writes great roles for women and here is a triumivirate (or should that be triumfeminate) to rank with the best. Imogen Stubbs is brilliant as Ruella, mixing hearty, brave, and enthusiastic characteristics with demure and unassuming behaviour. Mind you, she’s not above fluttering her womanly wiles at the hapless security man to get her way, manipulating in a thoroughly nice and decent manner, of course. Rachel Tucker, too, gives a delightful performance as Poopay, the dominatrix who’d probably be more comfortable tucked up with a late night cocoa, occasionally subtly revealing a hidden insight into what you imagine might be her rather sad and lonely world. As she faces her fears, running the gauntlet of Reece’s and Julian’s evil scheme, she and Ruella show great sisterly solidarity with each other, like a kind of time-warp self-help group. And then you have the wonderfully near-vacuous Jessica, played by Lucy Briggs-Owen, sweetly dippy on her wedding night, but blossoming in sophistication in later years – with a wonderfully underplayed moment where you realise what her ultimate fate will be. All three of them join forces in one amazing slapstick scene on the balcony – physical comedy at its funniest.

The “supporting” male cast are all very good too. There’s a splendidly low-life performance by David Bamber as the irredeemably horrible Julian, dripping with snide and malevolence, ready to snap your neck as soon as look at you. Robert Portal convinces us with both the nasty and kindly sides of Reece – being nasty certainly does nothing for Reece’s health, that’s for sure (nice work from the make-up department). And there’s some wonderful comic timing from Matthew Cottle as security man Harold, both bumptious in youth and beaten by age, and who also gets his own share of happy-ever-after.

We’re pretty sure all the loose ends tie up together, and, in the strange otherworld logic of the play, it kind of all makes sense. Incidentally, the original production had the three elements of the play set in 1974, 1994 and 2014. In our more modern society, Lindsay Posner has chosen to set the “future” scenes only a handful of years away, rather than a complete generation. A result of that is that whereas the original production had the “Ruella Years” for the contemporary setting, this production has “today” hovering somewhere between the two. So it looks like the director can play with time just as much as the author. Whatever, this is a timely opportunity to catch this great Ayckbourn play with a cast that do it terrific justice.

P.S. Great idea at the Menier now to have the bench seats in different colour fabric every two seats. That makes it so much easier to see where you should (and should not) be sitting, and may well discourage some people from spilling over into next door’s patch. Nice work!

Review – Racing Demon, Crucible, Sheffield, 19th February 2011

Posted on February 24, 2011 by therealchrisparkle

I think it’s about eight years since we last visited Sheffield. The approach to the theatre complex now is so smart and elegant, full of welcoming restaurants, with beautifully lit municipal buildings with lovely fountains, and a real walk-through Winter Garden, that I barely recognised the place.

The Crucible too has had a refit since our last visit and it must be now one of the most welcoming and comfortable theatres in the country. Really impressed. All this, and ridiculously cheap tickets too. We had seats three rows from the front but slightly on the side (didn’t matter at all not being at the front because the show was so sensibly blocked, unlike….) and they were only £13 each.

So we went to Sheffield to get a bit of the David Hare season action. He is a writer I have always admired, and even when his plays are a bit on the dark side, he is still thought-provoking and substantial. Racing Demon is his 1990 play about the ups and downs of a parish team of four vicars, with a wider questioning of the rights and wrongs of the Christian Church. At that time Mrs Chrisparkle and I didn’t see a lot of theatre so this play was brand new to us. And what a play it is. Believable characters, extremely funny, serious issues, heartbreaking moments. It really deserves its reputation as one of the best plays of recent years.

It’s largely a bare stage with occasional furniture brought on to suggest locations, but the dominating scenery is the Mackintosh-inspired back wall which lights up to create different shapes suggesting a church or a cross, and which conceals doors to the back. It’s very impressive. The play opens with the Rev Lionel Espy apparently praying but really, deep down, arguing with God. It’s a brilliant opening speech and completely sets the scene for the whole play. Malcolm Sinclair’s performance perfectly conveys a man desperately trying to do his best in a job he has been in too long. He wants to succour his flock, but he doesn’t believe the Church is supporting him in the right way – and in truth he is more interested in politicising his sermons and pastoral work with a practical anti-poverty stance, rather than by taking the sacrament seriously. Sometimes he resists the powers that work against him; sometimes he crumbles. It’s a fantastic performance, wholly credible.

It’s his young curate, Tony Ferris, played by Jamie Parker, possessed of too much of the fire and zeal of the evangelist to be satisfied with Espy’s relaxed form of vicaring, who starts the rift that will ultimately be Espy’s downfall. We saw Jamie Parker in another Hare play last year, My Zinc Bed, and he gave a very convincing performance of the misery of alcoholism. Here his enthusiasm for Christ rides roughshod over all his relationships and his progress towards what you expect will soon become slight insanity is chillingly told. There is a particular scene where he discusses his past relationship with his ex-girl friend, and his emotional disconnection with the real world actually makes the audience gasp. Fantastically well done.

The whole cast are wonderful actually – it’s all completely convincing. I loved the contrast between the ways the four vicars are shown in their quiet moments with God. It’s the writing that does it, but Matthew Cottle’s simplistically happy Rev “Streaky” Bacon wonderfully offsets the darker side of religious doubts offered elsewhere in the play. Jonathan Coy as the Bishop of Southwark was genuinely scary in his anger – although his main argument is with the ordination of women bishops – it was 1990 when this play came out, and how many women bishops do we have today? Excellent support from Ian Gelder (who I remember seeing as Private Steven Flowers in Privates on Parade way back in 1978) as the Rev Harry Henderson, outed as gay by a tabloid paper – today that would be redundant but in this play has a greater effect, which is the only sign of its slight “dating”; although even then it becomes a revealing barometer of the times. More excellent support from Paul Rattray as his friend, and Jane Wymark of Midsomer Murders fame as Espy’s long suffering wife. She prepares coffees on a tray for Espy and his guest and leaves with a concerned look and the serious question “Are you all right with the pouring?” With that line she superbly encapsulates so much of their relationship together.

This definitely deserves a transfer. Important subjects are tackled intelligently and acted beautifully. Daniel Evans’ direction allows the story to develop at a decent pace, with clarity and emotion. It’s a winner through and through.