Most people after the age of 30, wrote George Orwell, “abandon individual ambition – in many cases, indeed, they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all – and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery.” This is the sad conclusion the elderly women in Sandy Toksvig’s Silver Lining have reached, as they idle their time away in their retirement home. In retrospect, despite their talents and expertise, their lives as adult women had been either so relentlessly “busy, busy, busy” or so boring, they had been left with either no time or no energy to achieve anything truly meaningful.
They are not valued members of society. When the flood waters of Storm Vera rise, they are abandoned to their fate, not only by their few remaining relatives but also by all the care staff - save for one bizarrely mis-allocated and histrionic agency temp, a young black support worker from Croydon (played with energy and aplomb by newcomer to Bartholomew Players, Grace Olusola). Cut off by swirling waters, lack of electricity and erratic mobile signal, will they throw in the towel and succumb to their fate? Not a bit of it. In the face of adversity, they cease bickering and instead bring their long neglected talents to bear on creating their own solution to their problems.
The title of Sandy Toksvig’s play is characteristically clever and multi-faceted: as well as the unexpected benefit derived from this disastrous situation, it evokes the valuable hidden inner resources of the silver-haired generation. And this is the true drama – not the storm itself, so much as the gradual revelation of telling vignettes of their life stories. Particularly moving was that of May Trickett (Debi Lisburne Diacon), born in the wrong generation for a “love that dare not speak its name”.
This is a challenging play, in several respects. Firstly, it demands great stamina: from initial appearance, a cast member rarely if ever leaves the stage. An exceptionally notable performance in this regard was Liz Hutchinson’s depiction of a form of dementia as “St Michael” (the label in her clothing is initially her only identity!) – she managed to maintain throughout all the drama an impervious serenity, her mind apparently transfixed on some alternate plane, occasionally throwing out the odd enigmatic utterance. Secondly, there is an inherent tension in terms of timing, between the slowness for verisimilitude in portraying the aged characters versus the rapidity needed for the comic timing. Babs Denton was a superb stage presence in this respect, completely at ease in her character as Gloria, the former pub-landlady, and driving the pace of the production.
Being authored by Sandy Toksvig, the play was, like its title, clever and multi-faceted – and, of course, very funny! While exploring serious themes, principally how society treats women and the elderly, its humour encompassed clever wordplay, delightfully acerbic wit, wry observation, and inter-generational and inter-cultural misunderstandings.
As usual, the show lived up to the very high standards we have come to expect from Bartholomew Players, not least in terms of the legendary production values. Denise Santilli (producer) deserves high credit for her expert, slick, professional organisation and attention to detail: no effort spared to secure the perfect props; the quality of the sturdily fabricated set; everything in its proper place at the proper time even at the dress rehearsal! One can imagine the immense amount of work which must have gone into creating the production, but Bartholomew Players make it look like second nature.