By Alan Ayckbourn
Directed by Gareth Machin
Designed by Olivia du Monceau
Music Director – Ben Stock
Wiltshire Creative
Salisbury Playhouse
Saturday 4th May 14.30
CAST
Robert Bowman – David Ap Llewellyn
Rebecca Cooper – Hannah Llewellyn
Andy Cryer- Jarvis Huntley-Pike
Bessy Ewa- – Linda Washbrook
Olivia Forrest- Bridget Baines
Sasha Frost-Fay Hubbard
Damian Humbley- Guy Jones
Richard Hurst- Ian Hubbard
Lloyd Notice – Ted Washbrook
George Olney – Crispin Usher
Ben Stock – Mr Ames / pianist
Georgina Sutton – Rebecca Huntley-Pike
Heather Williams – Enid Washbrook
They number Ayckbourn plays. There are 89 of them. This is #31 from 1984, and was made into a film in 1989. The programme has a page showing every Salisbury production of Ayckbourn. This is the 35th one they’ve done. Ayckbourn is fond of lists. His The Art of Crafty Playmaking lists them all chronologically up to 2002. There were to be more. The latest in 2023. Only ten are reviewed on this site, but during Lockdown, we decided to sort our play programmes and we had seen a lot of Ayckbourn before I started reviewing twelve years ago.
I used to have a mild Ayckbourn aversion, though we saw so many. I don’t know if it was Ayckbourn or his audience/ Our 70s and 80s theatre going was mainly Poole, Salisbury, Southampton and Bath, which were all likely places for Ayckbourn. I either grew out of the aversion, or aged into being one of the target audience. In the 70s to 90s, Ayckbourn filled theatres with people who went just twice a year : a pantomime and an Ayckbourn, a testament to his popularity. I was younger then and I found the odd sexual references and themes were thought “daring” by people I assumed listened to James Last in their spare time. I was a theatre snob, and it extended to Rattigan and Coward. I’ve learned to appreciate them all.
This play is atypical Ayckbourn in that after its initial Scarborough run, it was commissioned and modified for the large Olivier stage at The National Theatre in 1984, thus affording a larger cast and multiple set changes. Try doing that in the round at Ayckbourn’s home theatre in Scarborough. It’s a play within a play, as it is the Pendon Amateur Light Operatic Society’s production of The Beggar’s Opera. It’s many years since I saw The Beggar’s Opera, and I wish I’d reminded myself of the plot on Wikipedia first – incidentally, something the programme could (should?) have done.
The Beggar’s Opera was written in 1728, and became the most popular play of the 18th century. It was a satire on the Italian high opera favoured by the wealthy British theatre goers. It was set in a world of highwaymen (MacHeath is the lead role), thieves, fences, pimps and prostitutes. Instead of exquisite Italian airs, Gay used popular folk songs of the day. Gay wanted the songs to be unaccompanied (though the director of the day scuppered that). Notably, Ayckbourn’s play uses only piano accompaniment, and several short pieces are unaccompanied. Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera was based on The Beggar’s Opera with new music by Kurt Weill.
To say it’s a play within a play simplifies it. The characters, who are members of the Pendon Amateur Light Operatic Society (PALOS), are crooked property developers, a wife-swapping couple, a frustrated housewife, cheating boyfriends. They’re directed by a lawyer who is also involved in the property development scam. My first thought is Pendon? What? He should have set it in Poole where we really know about dodgy developers. The result is that the characters are a modern version of Gay’s thieves and whores.
Ayckbourn normally has a major theatre idea to get him started. Here we start by seeing the last song of the eventual PALOS production of The Beggar’s Opera. The cast take their bows. Guy Jones (Damian Humbley) as MacHeath, the Highwaymen, takes a separate bow. The director, Daffyd Ap Llewellyn (Robert Bowman) makes his thanks speech. It’s over, the cast depart, each taking a cold and angry look at MacHeath. Guy Jones is left alone. He undresses, and puts on his street clothes and walks off. Then we go back in time three and a half months to his arrival as an applicant to join the society.
The set design is a star, changing constantly, so we are backstage, front stage, in a pub, the director’s house, the wife swapping couples house, the town councillor’s garden. It’s also a “green” stage set, recycling elements from other productions. That’s good, and fortunately they do NOT follow The Globe’s approach a few years ago, ‘Pick any costume you want from the costume store.’ The costumes are carefully thought out and paired so we see the couples. At the most obvious level it’s Ted and Enid Washbrook, the sweet older couple. (Lloyd Notice and Heather Williams). They have elaborate identical cardigans. Then they double up on the joke with matching duffle coats with patterned inserts, then treble up when they’re due to go to a dinner and dance and Ted’s frilly pink dress shirt matches Enid’s pink frock.
It goes further than that. The first time we see Fay and Ian Hubbard (the wife swappers), they’re both in the same shade of green and white. Ian is a property developer.
The young ones, Crispin (playing Macheath) and Linda (the Washbrooks’ daughter) are both in blue denim. It’s a good visual cue to the pairs in a large cast.
The story follows Guy Jones. He auditions for the company by singing All Through The Night. Daffyd Ap Llewellyn, the director, as amateur dramatic / light opera directors will do, immediately demonstrates in Welsh and upstages him. That’s what happens in amateur dramatics, the directors show off, while professional directors are usually extremely tentative in intervening and offering any model until the actor makes their own way. Anyway, Guy gets a one line role. He is invited back to Daffyd’s house to collect the script and have a hot drink. The house is the chintzier side of chintzy, and Hannah, Daffyd’s wife, is surprised by the visitor. Their twins keep a full-sized daddy doll on the sofa when Daffyd is out.
Once he’s in the company, Guy attracts interest from all the women. He’s a recent widower. He is very much the innocent, but not backward in allowing himself to be seduced. His popularity extends to the men. Guy works for a multi-national company, and there are rumours that it’s going to expand. There’s a plot of land right next to their offices. If they expand the price should shoot up. They all assume Guy has insider knowledge. Daffyd, as lawyer for one of the interested parties gets a whiff of it, which is why he is interested in promoting Guy’s roles. So does Ian Hubbard (Richard Hurst) and his sexy wife Faye (Sasha Long) which is why Faye is after Guy. Then professional Yorkshire tyke, Jarvis Huntley-Pike actually owns it.
Damian Humbley is the diffident Guy, and can sing too. He looks mild and lost among the mayhem, though not shy of taking advantage. The wife swappers invitation is a special scene … I loved Guy examining the erotic pictures (which we can’t see). The joke is that Guy had no one to bring (not realizing it’s wife swapping) so invited an elderly lady from a care home.
Sasha Long is a stunning and seductive Faye (as well as an outstanding dancer in the ensemble scenes).
George Olney is the two-timing Crispin Usher, the youthful star. He is two-timing Linda with the stage manager / prompter / bar maid Bridget Baines (Olivia Forrest).
Andy Cryer’s ‘Eeh Bah Gum’ role as Jarvis, the one who wants to direct the director (more gestures!), is always funny, never more so than his monologue tale of how his grandad bought the plot and what he did with it. It’s Ayckbourn script at its best, and delivered perfectly.
Crispin does the full Marlon Brando meets Billy Fury (you have to be old enough to remember Billy Fury, but think Elvis with more sneering into the mic). His MacHeath rehearsal performance from behind bars is a high point of the play.
Then Bridget is an outstanding role as the stroppy and aggressive stage manager, in England football shirt. She is also the daughter of the landlord of the pub they go to after rehearsals and in charge of drinking up. The antagonism between Linda and Bridget is over Crispin and builds through the rehearsals. The flat out vicious stage fights between Bridget and Linda look totally real.
Then we have the Ap Llewellyn household. Rebecca Cooper plays Hannah, the ignored wife, who romances Guy. Another “excellent” performance. The conundrum is Robert Bowman’s director, Daffyd. He does the blustering and joking with great energy and aplomb. I loved his physical performance, but when we got to the interval, both my companions said it was hard to follow what Daffyd was saying … now Karen has hearing aids which work perfectly and my granddaughter has very acute hearing. We all found a problem with his speeches. I thought he had a handicap because he had to deliver some lines off stage, with his back to the audience, but it was also speed and articulation. It was not my hearing because everyone else was clear and audible to me, though Georgina Sutton’s Rebecca Huntley-Pike was the clearest and best projection. RP accents help.
If I were being very picky, I’d ask Damian Humbley for just 5% more volume, but then in many ways he creates the character by not projecting like an amateur theatrical.
I so much enjoyed watching Daffyd, that I was surprised when I read the online reviews (far too few of them) afterwards. Broadway World’s review (Cheryl Markosky) makes the same point about Robert Bowman: He mumbles some of his lines, so it’s hard to catch the punchlines. Karen also suspected the dreaded ‘matinee gabble’ of going too fast, and also dropping volume at the end of sentences.
The play is far more theatrically exuberant than I expect from Ayckbourn … you don’t expect song and dance. It’s one of his best, for me. Then the characters are stereotypes, but well-drawn and funny and very well cast here. Great set and costume.
****
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
I said this on my last Salisbury review. It annoys me that the National Press will turn out for a performance in the tiny Menier Chocolate factory or Donmar Warehouse, but can’t be bothered to make the journey to a much larger theatre in Salisbury which always attracts a good-sized audience. Producing theatres are far too few, and getting fewer. Gareth Machin has done a sterling job in keeping Salisbury playhouse active and innovative through the rigours of Novichok (the Russian assassins had wanted to see ‘Salisbury Cathedral in the snow’ never having seen snow back in Russia), fast followed by Covid. The Nationals can find their way to Stratford and Chichester. Get Salisbury on the list!
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
ALAN AYCKBOURN ON THIS BLOG
How The Other Half Loves, by Alan Ayckbourn, , Salisbury 2023
Women in Mind by Alan Ayckbourn, Chichester Festival Theatre, 2022
Communicating Doors by Alan Ayckbourn, Menier Chocolate Factory, 2015
Neighbourhood Watch by Alan Ayckbourn, Stephen Joseph Company, Bath Theatre Royal, 2012
Way Upstream by Alan Ayckbourn, Salisbury Playhouse, 2011
The Norman Conquests by Alan Ayckbourn, Chichester 2017
– Living Together
– Table Manners
– Round and Round The Garden
GARETH MACHIN (Director)
One Last Push, Chris Chibnall Salisbury 2024
How The Other Half Loves, Alan Ayckbourn, Salisbury 2023
The Worst Wedding Ever, Salisbury 2017
Hedda Gabler, Salisbury 2016
The Magna Carta Plays, Salisbury 2015
Little Shop of Horrors, Salisbury 2015
Separate Tables, Salisbury 2014
The Recruiting Officer, Salisbury 2013
The Spire, Salisbury 2012
REBECCA COOPER
How The Other Half Loves, Alan Ayckbourn, Salisbury 2023
ANDY CRYER
The Two Noble Kinsmen, The Globe, 2018 (Jailer)
The Merry Wives, Northern Broadside 2016 (Dr Caius)
OLIVIA FORREST
Much Ado About Nothing, National, 2022 (Seacole)
DAMIAN HUMBLEY
Hedda Gabbler, Salisbury 2016 (Ellert)
RICHARD HURST
Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich, RSC 2018
The Duchess of Malfi, RSC 2018
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