July 26, 2007
Visually engaging from the moment the audience is seated, Michael Holt’s amazing set design of three bedrooms stacked like building blocks is perfect for a night of farce. The bedrooms are projected at a slightly disconcerting angle so looking at the room that is meant to foster relaxation and repose suddenly makes one feel a bit sea sick. Many of the fine actors in this cast of eight are familiar faces from TV. Natalie Cassidy plays an innocent obliging Kate, the host for a party that is soon to be disrupted by the fallout of a failing relationship between Trevor (Ben Porter) and Susannah (Beth Cordingly). There is much slapstick humour in the plight of Malcolm (James Midgley) as he struggles to put up some flat pack furniture to impress partner Kate. However in this staging of Ayckborn’s 1975 play, there is a bleak sadness in the fact that none of the four couples seem to be getting on. The vision of marital bliss is punctured by a stolen kiss between Trevor and a former girlfriend, the slick highly groomed Jan (Hannah Yelland). Jan’s corporate-ladder climbing partner Nick (Timothy Watson) is unmoved by this event, which visibly hurts Jan. Laughter is unavoidable though as Nick is confined to his bed due to a back injury and awkwardly tries to go about his business.
Quite likely the topics revealed in the play would have nudged away some of the taboos back in the decade that taste forgot. Upwardly mobile Nick is hilarious as he tries to stay in the game by taking a call from America for work even though he cannot move an inch. Trevor’s long-suffering parents Ernest (Colin Baker) and Delia (Louise Jameson) are a mature couple that do not under any circumstances talk about sex or rather the lack of it. Their bedtime activities consist of eating sardines on toast. Perhaps the biggest taboo of all that is tackled is that none of the characters seem in the least bit happy with their married lives but this is the idyll that is aspired to. Following their falling out at Kate’s party, Trevor and Susannah spend the entire evening disturbing everyone’s sleep and destructively impose their emotional problems on friends only to decide at the end that they will give their relationship another chance. This fast paced story, directed by Robin Herford, is told clearly thanks to a wonderful theatrical set with each room decorated to instantly tell the story of the couple co-habituating there. Each couple is hell-bent on improving themselves socially yet no one seems truly happy.
Quite likely the topics revealed in the play would have nudged away some of the taboos back in the decade that taste forgot. Upwardly mobile Nick is hilarious as he tries to stay in the game by taking a call from America for work even though he cannot move an inch. Trevor’s long-suffering parents Ernest (Colin Baker) and Delia (Louise Jameson) are a mature couple that do not under any circumstances talk about sex or rather the lack of it. Their bedtime activities consist of eating sardines on toast. Perhaps the biggest taboo of all that is tackled is that none of the characters seem in the least bit happy with their married lives but this is the idyll that is aspired to. Following their falling out at Kate’s party, Trevor and Susannah spend the entire evening disturbing everyone’s sleep and destructively impose their emotional problems on friends only to decide at the end that they will give their relationship another chance. This fast paced story, directed by Robin Herford, is told clearly thanks to a wonderful theatrical set with each room decorated to instantly tell the story of the couple co-habituating there. Each couple is hell-bent on improving themselves socially yet no one seems truly happy.