Peter Viney's Blog

By Chris Chibnall

Directed by Gareth Machin
Designer Simon Kenny

Wiltshire Creative
Salisbury Playhouse
Thursday 22nd February 2024, 14.15

CAST
Sam Alexander – Mark
Valerie Antwi- Alize
Sherry Baines – Eileen
James Gaddas – Dave
Laura Main – Jen
David Partridge – Paul

None of the cast are on the poster / programme illustration

We were immediately taken with the idea here. Way back, forty odd years ago, we laboured (geddit!) on a pilot sitcom script on NCT (National Childbirth Trust) classes, though we never meant to go as far as the childbirth. It was one of many abandoned projects. I’ve seen two children born, being expelled from the first child’s birth after a 17 hour labour because they were contemplating a caesarean. It didn’t happen, as the young Australian doctor did an unusual ventouse extraction instead. He staggered out, muttered ‘it’s a girl’ and disappeared. I went in to find it was a boy. Apparently in that shift he had delivered nine girls already and was confused. I spoke to him two days later and he said every nurse in the hospital was laughing at his error, and offering to explain the difference (he was a handsome young man too). He feared it would pursue him throughout his career. Our second child was born in the GP unit at the hospital … you went in with the midwife and your GP visited in the morning. I remember driving there with Karen behind the midwife’s car. There were roadworks with large potholes. I was glancing at my fuel gauge which was on empty, terrified of the consequences if I had run out. That birth came to mind as our daughter had the cord round her neck which is part of the drama in the play. The tea lady had just arrived, and was a retired nurse and assisted the midwife. The third child was a home birth. Karen was at our oldest granddaughter’s birth (so at the other end from her own deliveries). I drove my daughter to hospital at 11.30 on Christmas Eve with frequent contractions, and I admit I touched 50 mph in a 30 mph limit. That baby was the first birth in Dorset on Christmas Day. Yes, birth stories are ones we never forget … which is the strength and secret of the play.

We made similar comments on Chris Chibnall’s The Worst Wedding Ever. I get highly indignant on Salisbury Playhouse’s behalf. The Donmar Warehouse can just about squeeze in 250 people and every national newspaper reviews whatever they do. The Menier Chocolate Factory? It can seat 150. It gets reviews. The Almeida, Islington? Unless you’re a “Friend” you’re unlikely to get tickets. 325 capacity. It’s an Islington club in essence. Every national paper reviews it. Yet Salisbury, virtually full at 517 seats gets limited national reviews. Well done the Guardian and The Times for making the journey, but as so often they can’t seem to distinguish between reviewing King Lear or Waiting for Godot and reviewing a flat-out comedy.

Salisbury Playhouse is a producing theatre. It goes for originals and world premieres. It is a regional theatre with a wide catchment area. We come from Poole. We’ve met people from Swindon, Marlborough, Devizes, Bath, Winchester, Southampton, Bournemouth there. Yet most of the national newspapers and theatre sites can’t be arsed to get on the direct line from London to review Salisbury. This afternoon was nearly full, but there were a few seats available at the extreme sides. Believe me, you can see and hear better there (we’ve often sat there) than in West End theatres at SIX times the price. The production quality will be no less, though you might not get Kenneth Branagh, Dominic West or Sheridan Smith. You won’t see the difference. The legroom is so good you don’t have to stand to let people through. The rake means your view is never blocked by the person in front. A producing theatre has to get people in for at least three weeks too.

One Last Push is a comedy. Is that the issue? A theatre full of people went out smiling with a happy buzz.

No plot spoilers. The set is their flat, with the requisite four doors for comedy. Either side is a screen the shape of a mobile phone screen, but the full height of the set. These screens are used for projected phone texts and photos, and also live action filming from mobiles on stage … possibly. It could be pre-recorded, but looks real. Showing phone messages projected is not a first on stage, we have seen it more than once, but not as well done as it is here, and nowhere near as funny. I don’t have any idea how they manage to get the shape.

Jen (Laura Main) is expecting her first baby imminently. Mark (Sam Alexander), her husband is fussing over details such as parking at the hospital and preparing her hospital bag, though Jen is insistent that she is having a home birth and has an inflatable birthing pool. The birthing pool (which requires pumping up) is the source of much fun. There’s all the paraphernalia – TENS machine, nursing bras, nappies, to deal with, though the ever on edge Mark is more worried about feeding the car park machine which is cash only.

Sam Alexander on his character: He’s a risk averse dad-to-be whose wife has her heart set on a home birth. That leaves him in an agonising position: how can he honour her wishes and his own desire to control the controllables? As if that wasn’t enough, his own dad who abandoned him when he was two has just shown up and wants to make friends. Oh, and his new house is falling apart around his ears.

They live in a flat, which Mark’s Dad, Dave (James Gaddas), is trying to do up for them extremely ineptly. Jen is fed up to the back teeth with his slow progress and bad work. It’s a truism. Just today I was being remonstrated with for continuing to deal with a particularly inept tradesman. I recall the Fawlty Towers episode where Sibyl is furious with Basil for continuing to have faith in the builder, O’Reilly. It’s what men do.

They bought the flat from Paul (David’s Partridge), who converted the flat from a house as cheaply as possible, and lives upstairs in the other flat. Paul is a survivalist and utterly mad.

Jen’s mum, Eileen (Sherry Baines), arrives to ‘help’ with the birth. We get a long story about how she seriously injured Frank, her husband and Jen’s stepfather. This becomes a running sub plot on the phone projection. There’s also her horror at Dexy’s Midnight Runners song, Come On Eileen which has plagued her since it was a hit forty-two years ago. I’ll bet Sherry Baines empathizes with that: the Four Seasons hit must have plagued her too. (Sherry! Won’t you come out tonight!)

Then we add Dave’s new girlfriend, the gorgeous Alize (Valerie Antwi), who must be twenty-five to thirty years younger than Dave. She arrives at the end of Act One.

They actually do the delivery on stage AND it works. A lot was familiar – the anger towards the end when having said she doesn’t want to see any of them ever again, she points straight at Mark and says ‘Especially you!’ We agreed afterwards that I’ve been there and done that, or rather had that said to me. The effing and blinding at the birth was also familiar. The home birth for our third child was conducted by a midwife recently arrived from New Zealand (on reflection, we have had considerable Antipodean assistance) who shook her head and said ‘Women in New Zealand don’t swear like that!’ I reckon they probably do.

It’s hard to review without plot-spoiling. There is a high level of technical stagecraft here: complex jokes involving the set which might have been unthinkable (and impossible) before the Play That Goes Wrong series. The acting in this sort of comedy requires precision timing, and precision blocking and positioning. It got it. There was a mild issue with set stunts being telegraphed, but then they had a ‘double whammy’ which wasn’t. I’ll say no more.

OK, we loved it, and so did the audience in general. Let’s nit-pick some criticisms though. In Act One, Jen has the same routine of getting furiously angry in the same way three times … Mark, Dave, Eileen. A little more variation would help.

I got Come on Eileen instantly from Dave stomping on the floor. Not everyone did. They need to let the chorus run a bit more whenever it appears and let the punch line stand out.

Accents. In one way it’s accent blind. Mark is RP, his dad is north-east. Jen is Scots, but her mum is RP. Paul is light Wiltshire. Alize is cheerful Estuary. But then there’s an argument between Dave and Paul on north-east v south-west accents. By the way, you could obviously switch that to any two accents in future productions elsewhere … Lancashire v Yorkshire, Welsh v English, Brummy v London. I wondered if it was scripted in stone that it was NE v SW. So Dave has a strongish North-East accent and quite a gruff tone of voice. We both found him hard to follow, as did the people near us in the interval, but then we, like Paul, are South-West. I’ve spent decades promoting a variety of accents in English Language teaching materials, but even so you do note that Sherry Baines’ standard RP has crystal clarity when surrounded with regional accents. That’s why RP (Received Pronunciation aka BBC English, Oxford English) is in the position it is. Whatever your local accent might be, you can follow it. Having noted from the programme that Sherry Baines studied drama at Hull University, her excellent clarity and delivery would perhaps come from the same source as my own …

I hope the play goes on to future incarnations. It thoroughly deserves to.

****

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
five star
Theatreand artsreviews.com *****
three star
Rachel Haliburton, The Times ***
two star
Chris Weigand, The Guardian **
Holly Mahoney, The Stage **

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

CHRIS CHIBNALL
The Worst Wedding Ever, Salisbury 2017

GARETH MACHIN (Director)
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

SAM ALEXANDER
How The Other Half Loves, Alan Ayckbourn, Salisbury 2023
The Watsons, by Laura Wade, Chichester 2018
Racing Demon, by David Hare, Bath 2017
Love’s Labour’s Won (Much Ado About Nothing), RSC 2014, Stratford (Don John)
Much Ado About Nothing (Love’s Labour’s Won), RSC at Chichester, 2016 (Don John)
Love’s Labour’s Lost, RSC 2014 (King of Navarre)
Love’s Labour’s Lost, RSC at Chichester 2016 (King of Navarre)

SHERRY BAINES
How The Other Half Loves, Alan Ayckbourn, Salisbury 2023
Before The Party, Ronald Ackland, Salisbury 2017