July 16, 2009
A sizeable, supportive audience enjoyed the gradual unfolding of what started as a baffling situation, and turned into a gripping murder story, on stage in Banbury last night. Don West’s rather formulaic and predictable story still had the ability to make the audience gasp at the end of each scene as a new revelation was made, and everybody was suitably satisfied by the end.
In a sparsely furnished, secluded house in the Lake District, Christine Hammond arrives for a month’s peace and relaxation, apparently, but she starts getting three of four mysterious, silent phone calls a day. A local journalist agrees to support her and, being a part-time author as well, smells a good plot for a new book. The estate agent who rented the house to Christine also calls to make sure she’s comfortable, and is surprised to learn that two rooms in the house are locked; the owners, gone for some winter sun, seem to have been colourful but controversial characters in the small, closed community.
And so we are drawn into a story of murder, revenge, and an uncompromising search for justice in a jaundiced, prejudiced, rural community of misfits and rogues. Inevitably, with a structure like this, there is a lot of sitting and talking, as each character reveals their true past and reasons for being there, and this made for long sections of the play when I could have closed my eyes and missed nothing. All of these people have strong inner lives, which they only reveal to others as time goes by, but which we need to see from the start, and this was often lacking.
Neil Smith brought welcome energy to the second act in his relentless search for truth, and I wanted more of this energy from the others, who are surely just as driven on their own particular journeys. If such passion had been there, the slow pace would have picked up, and we would have felt whisked along on a scary runaway train of a story, rather than the sedate, plodding stroll towards revelation that we were given.
As usual with this company, everything technical was very good, though I wanted more subtle lighting and more evidence of a house that had once been lived in, before being suddenly deserted. All the actors worked well together while sometimes forgetting the through lines and objectives they were pursuing. And often the script bludgeoned me with clichés and qualification. However, there was, as always, a warm welcome at The Mill, an enjoyable voyeuristic theatrical experience, and an audience around me that was utterly captivated. Certainly a success, and one that will become stronger by Saturday’s last night.
In a sparsely furnished, secluded house in the Lake District, Christine Hammond arrives for a month’s peace and relaxation, apparently, but she starts getting three of four mysterious, silent phone calls a day. A local journalist agrees to support her and, being a part-time author as well, smells a good plot for a new book. The estate agent who rented the house to Christine also calls to make sure she’s comfortable, and is surprised to learn that two rooms in the house are locked; the owners, gone for some winter sun, seem to have been colourful but controversial characters in the small, closed community.
And so we are drawn into a story of murder, revenge, and an uncompromising search for justice in a jaundiced, prejudiced, rural community of misfits and rogues. Inevitably, with a structure like this, there is a lot of sitting and talking, as each character reveals their true past and reasons for being there, and this made for long sections of the play when I could have closed my eyes and missed nothing. All of these people have strong inner lives, which they only reveal to others as time goes by, but which we need to see from the start, and this was often lacking.
Neil Smith brought welcome energy to the second act in his relentless search for truth, and I wanted more of this energy from the others, who are surely just as driven on their own particular journeys. If such passion had been there, the slow pace would have picked up, and we would have felt whisked along on a scary runaway train of a story, rather than the sedate, plodding stroll towards revelation that we were given.
As usual with this company, everything technical was very good, though I wanted more subtle lighting and more evidence of a house that had once been lived in, before being suddenly deserted. All the actors worked well together while sometimes forgetting the through lines and objectives they were pursuing. And often the script bludgeoned me with clichés and qualification. However, there was, as always, a warm welcome at The Mill, an enjoyable voyeuristic theatrical experience, and an audience around me that was utterly captivated. Certainly a success, and one that will become stronger by Saturday’s last night.