Peter Viney's Blog

The Cat & The Canary
By John Willard
Adapted by Carl Grose

Directed by Paul Hunter
Designed by Angela Davies
Composer Ian Ross

The Minerva Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre
Co-production with Told By An Idiot

Wednesday 9th October 2024
19.30

CAST
Tarinn Callender – Harry Blythe
Hayley Carmichael- Mrs Pleasant
Calum Finlay- Paul Jones
Nick Haverson – Crosby / Hendricks / Patterson
Lena Kaur – Susan Sillsby
Heather Lai- Dora
Nikhita Lesler – Cicily Young
Lucy McCormick – Annabelle West
Will Merrick- Charlie Wilder

John Willard’s play is from 1922, and spawned films in 1927, 1930, 1939 and 1979. It took place on the Hudson River, but in this adaptation we’re in Bodmin Moor. Reviving B&W film is a source for plays now, just as plays used to be a source for B&W film.

1939: Bob Hope /Paulette Goddard, 1978 Honor Blackman / Edward Fox

The cat and canary story is that the cat doesn’t kill the canary, but the canary died of fright. That’s the reason for the title. We discussed it in the packed Minerva restaurant before. Karen finds the story traumatic. When she was ten she had a canary, a gift from her grandmother. A tom cat left its owners, adopted them and moved in. Its name was Jimmy, though it wasn’t Scottish. For weeks it gazed at the canary cage, then one morning it did the leap from chair to table to cage and knocked it off its hook, the bottom slid out, and Jimmy killed the canary and started to devour it.

This is a co-production with Told By An Idiot, though I’d guess they had the main share of input on this. The company was founded by the director Paul Hunter, and Hayley Carmichael who plays the spooky, creepy housekeeper Mrs Pleasant in this. They remind me in ways of Mickey O’Donaghue’s New Vic company in the late 80s, especially in Nick Haverson’s performance with ever changing roles marked by a beard that could become hair or a sporran. He dominates every scene he is in, much as O’Donaghue did. It’s knowingly theatrical, part of it is showing the bones of the production. We see people on top of the set, walking behind.

Hayley Carmichael as Mrs Pleasant, Heather Lai as Dora

It’s hard to categorise the play. The Minerva is three sides in the round, or 270 degrees. Everyone is close, but we were front row on the stage right side. We were extremely close. Actor spit range close. It isn’t a whodunit in Christie style, more a horror / melodrama played well over the top for comedy. Reviews channel The Play That Went Wrong, but it doesn’t have the added meta level of student Am Dram. It is played as it is. No set mistakes, but extraordinary set events and extraordinary sound effects and lightning. It is full of ideas and I assume a very long way from the 1922 play.

The plot: Cyrus West was a wealthy landowner who died 20 years previously. He has set that his will be read to assembled relatives after 20 years have passed. Mrs Pleasance runs the house with Dora, a servant struck dumb when Cyrus died. Mr Crosby is the solicitor who will open the safe and reveal two reels of film. Cyrus is on film announcing his will- compare the touring play of 1984 with actors not on the tour appearing on video projection. Here it’s just Cyrus. The first heir is Annabelle, unless she dies or proves to be insane, in which case the second reel must be shown to reveal the replacement heir. So will Annabelle be frightened to death or madness? Add an escaped lunatic who may or may not be in the house.

Will Merrick (Charlie Wilder), then Calum Finlay (Paul Jones) with the terrified Annabelle.

Charlie Wilder (Will Merrick),is the “actor” relative, and announces that he is used to big empty houses. He has played the Theatre Royal, Windsor. Later, he admits that his career on Broadway was on Ealing Broadway. The other young chap, Paul Jones (Calum Finlay) is a vet and enamoured of Annabelle – apparently. This leads to fun with horse tranquilizer and a huge syringe.

Then Harry Blythe (Tarinn Callender), a famous boxer, is another potential beneficiary. John Willard, the playwright, played this role in the 1922 original. Obviously when you take candlestickls off a bookshelf,. a secret door opens. I thought everyone knew that.

Then there’s Susan Sillby (Lena Kaur) and her niece Cicily Young (Nikhita Lesler)

Susan Silsby (Lena Kaur) / Annabelle Wst(Lucy McCormick)

The many horror references stumble over each other. The plot of driving a woman insane is like Gaslight, but maybe that took from the silent film versions. On arrival, the house reminds them of Dracula’s castle. I will add Mrs Pleasant is rather Ygor like. There is a Red Riding Hood doll, compare Don’t Look Now, whose head can swivel 360 degrees. Compare Carrie. Then in part two Susan Silsby has Bride of Frankenstein hair. There are secret passages, moving bookcases. We couldn’t work out what the Red Riding Hood doll was about, but there is a reference to a dead sister, and Annabelle cuddles it near the end. A minor oddity is that when Nick Haverson plays the Scottish doctor in a kilt, Mrs Pleasant then appears with a tartan shawl, and all three (Annabelle is on stage) switch to Scottish accents as if they’ve sudenly fallen into another Gothic setting. Cornish moor to Scottish moor. I found it funny.

I don’t want to plot spoil the whodunnit aspect. It’s full on comedy action.

Live drumming is a plus. Peter Brook used live drums in his A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So did we in our 70s ELT shows. It accentuates action in a way SFX cannot do. And a cast member, Nick Haverson, was doing it, just as two more were adding live piano.

I noted I was next to an empty seat with a degree of trepidation. I was right, Nick Haverson sat in it and used me to issue dire warnings about not leaving the theatre. He had just issued warnings to the cast not to leave the house. Nick Haverson slips below the piano as Mr Crosby, phoning the asylum, and emerges with beard as Hendricks, head of the asylum on the other end of the phone.

Lucy McCormick as the beleaguered Annbelle has to look terrified to the point of madness for pretty much the whole 100 minutes which is a daunting task. She looks the part.

The end of act one was one of the theatrical highlights of the year.

There are more references. One is from Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy, where the lights suddenly go very bright and we assume the opposite, someone shouts, the lights have gone out, and we accept that the actors are now in the dark. That is used for the multi-role -plus drumming Nick Haverson to make himself up as a throat slashed murder victim before our very eyes. Then Annabelle used a blanket held in front of her while sitting upright to indicate being in bed asleep. That was an English Teaching Theatre idea which we also borrowed.

In the end, in spite of the energy and efforts, I’ll go for three stars. It’s a romp, but tries just a little too hard to be funny, and when you do that, a relentless edge creeps in. It was a great evening of entertainment though, I’d see it again.

***

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
four star
Clive Davis, The Times ****
Gareth Carr, What’s On Stage ****
“It’s far from subtle and it’s hardly intellectual, but it’s damn good fun and is a solid ending to what has been another fine festival season at Chichester.”
three star
Chris Weigand, The Guardian ***
Holly O’Mahoney, The Stage ***
West End Best Friend ***
The Real Chrisparkle ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

PAUL HUNTER
Life of Galileo, Young Vic 2017 (as actor)

NICK HAVERSON
Love’s Labour’s Lost, RSC 2014, Chichester 2016 (Costard)
Love’s Labour’s Won, RSC 2014, Chichester 2016 (Dogberry)

CHARLIE WILDER
All’s Well That Ends Well, Wanamaker Playhouse 2018

CALUM FINLAY
Switzerland, Bath Ustinov 2018
The Merry Wives of Windsor, RSC2012 (Slender)