Dangerous Corner (Company of Ten) - Full Review

****

A Sparkling Dangerous Corner.

Company of Ten are one of the classiest amateur companies around and they are on sparkling form with Tina Swain’s virtually impeccable production of J B Priestley’s Dangerous Corner. In a good old fashioned 1930’s drama of seething tensions and destructive truths set and costumes perfectly realise the civilised age long gone. Russell Vincent leads an impressively strong cast as a man who, misguidedly, will not let sleeping dogs lie. An absorbing, four star, two hours that is well worth a ticket.

I wrote that, sorry to those who hate reading things twice, shortly after seeing a Sunday Matinee. (Dunstable Rep take note). Nothing has changed in my thoughts in the past week to make me alter my mind. I left Company of Ten’s latest production vowing to marry director Tina Swain if she will have me, her indoors may have something to say about that, but I did so for the best theatrical reasons. I reckon Ms Swain loves the old fashioned thirties as much as I do, her London Wall office life politics had me tingling, and she captured the post dinner party elegance and venom of Priestley’s first ‘time play’ with consummate style and pleasing presentation. Judith Goodban’s drawing room set and Lesley Ivinson’s costumes magnificently evoked a bygone age and metaphorical knives and damaging truths were drawn with finesse. Add in the fine directorial pointing of cigarettes lit, drinks poured, and refined seating by windows, and these numerous prosaic moments underline the hand of a director cleverly painting the gathering tension. Almost from the start I felt that this lot knew what they were doing. Sit back and enjoy.

It could all have gone pear shaped of course. If those bloody actors are blind to your concept they could scupper it by overblown or underplayed performance or by mistiming a line which destroys a lovingly created scene. Have seen the latter a few times in my long life and, pleased to say, my last prison sentence was suspended. Justifiable homicide the judge come theatre critic said. No chance here at St Albans. The seven strong cast were singing, collectively and individually, to Ms Swain’s Dangerous Corner tune. Shan’t regale you with the plot. Or only a bit. A chance remark regarding a musical cigarette box owned by the offstage and unseen Martin, conveniently dead, leads to smug and self satisfied dinner guests writhing like snakes in a bottomless pit. Lovely stuff. And beautifully played by actors collectively aware that this play had a solid theatrical base and individually determined to ensure that it zinged.

Russell Vincent was riveting as the slightly pompous and unduly pure host Robert Caplan who, misguidedly and doggedly, unearthed questions best left unanswered. A central performance of the highest class. And Abbe Waghorn visually ticked all my demanding boxes as elegant hostess Freda Caplan, torn between social niceties and destructive truths. Do you serve sandwiches when someone has confessed to murder? Probably. Lianne Weidmann was on top form as the slightly repressed and introspective Olwen Peel, Stuart Hurford spot on in the difficult part of the over emotional Gordon Whitehouse, and Apryl Kelly engaging as the doll like Betty Whitehouse. Miss Kelly needed to project a little more in her quieter scenes but this is a small point in an overall captivating performance. Besides, my ears ain’t what they used to be. But my favourite performance in a cast full of cream was Andrew Baird’s subtly crafted performance as the dinner party’s bad apple Charles Stanton. Drinks as much as me, Mr Stanton that is, which is no bad thing and his revealing social pariah cleverly knitted the growing tensions of the Caplan’s evening soiree. I first sniffed out Mr Baird as the friar in Juliet and her Romeo. Impressive then, even more so here.

That just leaves me with Jacqui Golding’s Maud Mockridge and my only caveat in an otherwise faultless production. Rest easy Ms Golding. Nothing about you. A beautiful, well modulated, and clear performance as an insufferable author publishers have to put up with. Social snob and convenient voice of exposition and, at the end, the underscoring point of the narrative. In a play that crucially goes full circle, hence its charm, Miss Mockridge is the important link. Her returning final scene was not reset with open curtains and afternoon light. Cigarette box and radio music repeated conversations not dramatically pointed enough for my taste. So the muted finale did not underline the tantalising beginnings. But my only caveat. Overall a superb Dangerous Corner. A superb production, first class director, excellent cast. Even if my small ending theatrical sniff means the marriage to Ms Swain is off. Roy Hall

Dangerous Corner (Company of Ten)

****

Company of Ten are one of the classiest amateur companies around and they are on sparkling form with Tina Swain’s virtually impeccable production of J B Priestley’s Dangerous Corner. In a good old fashioned 1930’s drama of seething tensions and destructive truths, set and costumes perfectly realise the civilised age long gone. Russell Vincent leads an impressively strong cast as a man who, misguidedly, will not let sleeping dogs lie. An absorbing, four star, two hours that is well worth a ticket. Roy Hall

 

Abbey Theatre,

St Albans.

 

Runs until Saturday 20th October 8.00pm

 

Box Office 01727 857861 (Tickets £12/£11)

Full Review to Follow

 

 

Neighbourhood Watch (Barn Theatre)

Barn Theatre,

Welwyn.

October 2018

****

A Classy Neighbourhood from the Barn

There is no pretending. Neighbourhood Watch is not one of Ayckbourn’s best. Hardly surprising. He has written as many as his age and that is close to eighty. On both counts. The cream of those have that wonderful frisson of middle class folk, superficially civilised, grasping each other by the metaphorical throat in family dances of exquisite comedy. Think Seasons Greetings, Absent Friends, Just Between Ourselves. The resident lot on the Bluebell Hill Development do not have that comic potential. These nice folk, well some of them, direct their angst at the anonymous oiks festering in the off stage and threatening Mountjoy Estate. Put up the barriers, erect the stocks, and create a private police force. We all, cosy middle class that we are, fear the Mountjoy worlds and given the opportunity would do the same. That is what Ayckbourn seems to be saying. It creates comedy, it creates absurdity, but it lacks that recognisable reality that underpins classic Ayckbourn. He really don’t do plot and Neighbourhood Watch has a bloody big one.

But even a minor Ayckbourn is littered with rich characterisations. The brother and sister Massie’s have religion and sexual frustration in spades and their misguided campaign to embrace their new neighbourhood in civilised vigilantism captures a motley crew of willing, and unwilling, participants. The Bradleys at number whatever are a wife beater and a sensitive musician, and the Janners, so some say, a nymphomaniac and a masturbating loner. Mix in a security obsessed ex army man and a gossipy old fogey completely out of her depth and you have a heady mix for an interesting pudding. All united against those unseen monsters of the Mountjoy estate. As my old mother used to say, it will all end in tears. This one did as pigeons and people perished in fire and gunshot. And you can’t say that about much of Ayckbourn’s canon.

I take my hat off to director Bob Thomson. He not only flagged up the growing threat to those cosy residents of Bluebell Hill with astutely filled living room backdrops and Mosleyite donning of black costumes but he created a delicious mix of complex characters in which there was not a single serious weakness. I have never seen Godfrey Marriott on stage before, but by God I can’t wait to see him again. His performance of Martin Massie, misguided lover of Jesus and most of mankind, was a joy. A character who could have been bland almost to the point of non existence was, in Mr Marriott’s hands, rich in nuance and vulnerability. A central performance of the highest class. Linda Vincent was an equally excellent Hilda, feet more firmly on the ground, and Hazel Halliday a touching and sensitive wife beaten Magda. Her second act speech on childhood abuse was riveting. Of the others, all totally believable, I will only single out Ruth Heppelthwaite’s portrayal of Amy Janner. A refreshing antidote to the righteous indignation of most she invested all her scenes with aggressively strong characterisation and consummate skill. A booted bitch, we suspected, but with an enormous sense of fun.

I have a few caveats but that is probably because I saw the Scarborough original, directed by that man Ayckbourn himself, and have played the obnoxious security man in a later production. Directed by my wife. With all that baggage you could say, unkindly, that I went to the Barn determined to theatrically sniff. If I did, and I didn’t, those sniffs were quickly packed away. I know a good production when I see one. And this, I am pleased to say, was one of them. Well worth four stars. I reckon the one I was in only got three and a half. Roy Hall

 

 

 

The Accrington Pals ( TADS theatre Group)

Tads Theatre

Toddington

September 2018

****

Theatre's Joy, Accrington's Sorrow

Being a man of a certain age I have seen a lot of War Memorials in my time. Through the length and breadth of this country the smallest hamlets and towns and villages all have them. It humbles you to see the long list of names from World War One, in even the tiniest of places. I have never been to Accrington, famous for its Stanley football team and its wartime Pals, but I reckon their war memorial must be amongst the biggest and most awe inspiring. Over 700 of their young men signed up for Kitchener’s army and nearly 600 of them lost their lives in one of the twentieth

century’s bloodiest battles. The Battle of the Somme, 1^st July 1916. The ‘Pals’ recruitment policy was soon ditched. The downside of a community going to war together was the desolate whirlwind created in the town left behind.

Peter Whelan captures all this, poetically and beautifully, in his small scale telling of the tale of a town which went to war and, tragically, inscribed its name forever on the British memory. The Accrington Pals encapsulates those men in the Tom and Arthur and Ralph of his dramatisation but also, even more, paints a tender and realistic picture of their women. As someone much cleverer than me said, he could have just as easily called his play The Accrington Gals. They it was who had to pick up the pieces when passions and hopes of a wasted generation lay dead on a foreign field. This play is Oh What a Lovely War writ small and telling. And it packs, especially at the end, a similar punch.

The gritty May has unspoken love for her younger cousin, the idealistic and introspective Tom. The sensitive Eva yearns and succumbs to the cheerful charms of irrepressible Ralph. And pious Arthur takes up gun and God to escape the acerbic Annie. Or that’s how I read it. Mix in the sexually liberated Sarah and the jolly and comic Bertha, splendidly attired as a bus conductress, with unseen and unsatisfactory beaus and small town lives engagingly focus against the backdrop of a devastating war that devoured the innocents. These men knew not to what they willingly marched.

The ensemble playing did not totally please, I wanted more pace and vigour in early scenes, and a couple of the players lacked that essential inner truth to completely engage the small town life. But where they did in Jenna Kay’s directorial debut we were given some cracking performances. Tracey Chatterley was a superb no nonsense May, conscious both of duty and denied emotional fulfilment, Joe Hawkins (Ralph) a delightfully uplifting man of pleasure, and Iain Grant (Tom) a sensitive artist destined to have ideals and body bloodily destroyed. My small caveat with Mr Grant is that this ageing critic wished for more projection in his quieter scenes. A criticism I also directed at Connie Wiltshire’s eminently watchable Eva. You felt for this cuckoo in May’s domestic nest, her expressions oozed emotion, but some of her lines were lost.

But overall, especially in a vigorous second act filled with consummate sound and lighting effects from Paul Horsler and Josh Halsey, the production generally pleased. Jennifer McDonald was a telling Bertha, an emancipated girl who could not love a man who stayed at home, Claire Moore a nicely dirty minded Sarah, Andrew Naish an especially impressive bible thumping Arthur, and Nathaniel Chatterley a convincing ragamuffin constantly avoiding his mother’s stick. The young Mr Chatterley’s stage timing would put some older hands to shame.

Director Jenna Kay sang the two evocative songs beautifully and the second, counterpointing the harrowing end scenes depicted, softened even the hardest theatrical heart. Miss Kay shows much promise as a director. I may have quibbled at some of her narrative scenes but fine individual acting coupled with the quiet and still intensity of the final war strewn tableau will long remain in the memory. I have directed over fifty plays. Jenna Kay’s ending of The Accrington Pals eclipsed much. It makes you muse over that late night introspective whisky. Theatre, like wars, relies so much on the promise of the young. Theatre’s joy. Accrington’s sorrow.

Roy Hall