Peter Viney's Blog

By Stephen Beresford
Directed by Nicholas Hytner
Set design by Mark Thompson

Chichester Festival Theatre
Thursday 23rd June 2022, matinee

CAST

Alex Jennings – David Highland, vicar
Holly Atkins – Joy Sampson, police officer
Josh Finan – Lee Southbury, uncle of ‘the child’
Jack Greenlees – Craig Collier, new curate
Hermione Gulliford- Janet Oram, doctor’s wife
Jo Herbert- Susan Highland, David and Mary’s daughter
Phoebe Nicholls – Mary Highland, David’s wife
Rachael Ofori – Naomi Highland, David and Mary’s adopted daughter
Sarah Twomey – Tina Southbury, mother of ‘the child’

It’s almost at the end of its Chichester run, but fear not. It’s going straight to The Bridge Theatre in London, because it’s a co-production between Chichester and The Bridge, and directed by Nicholas Hytner of The Bridge. These are technically the best two theatrical spaces in the south of England (with the best settings too) united on a joint enterprise. For us, Chichester is a much easier journey than London, so may their co-operation long continue. Compared to London theatres, Chichester is a joy. In the twenty minute interval you can stroll out into the park behind and admire the community orchard they planted a few years ago.

I’m going to be careful here to avoid either plot-spoiling or line quoting. A couple of reviews have irritated me by quoting some of the many memorable lines in the play. The play is very funny in parts. Quoting lines removes the impact of hearing them fresh. I wanted to buy the play text … Chichester always sells them. However they had sold out much faster than expected. I’m sure all the newspaper critics would have had a copy on press night, hence the line spoiling. I’ve ordered a copy on amazon.

I’m going to focus on background and themes. It’s going to be a long run in London, and is certain to be one of the Bridge’s future NT Live transmissions.

The Reverend David Highland (Alex Jennings) is the vicar in a village on the coast of Devon. He’s married to Mary (Phoebe Nicholls), and he has two daughters. Susan (Jo Herbert) is a teacher and the verger at the church. The supermodel-level glamorous Naomi (Rachael Ofori) is an actress, returning home while ‘resting.’ We soon learn that David has alcohol issues, and is an adulterer.

A child, Taylor Southbury, has died of leukaemia. Her uncle, Lee (Josh Finan), has arrived to discuss the funeral.This where the play and the problem start. The one-parent family want Disney Princess balloons in the church. David is intransigent. They are not suitable for a religious ceremony. His refusal goes viral, the whole village hate him. A new curate, Craig (Jack Greenlees) is sent to resolve matters. He is young, and he is gay. The story runs on from there. David will not back down, it is a matter of principle to him.

There are several scenes spanning the time between the death and the funeral, and including the village’s River Festival, an annual ceremony dating back long before the Christian era. There are sub-plots, and though we know that David had an affair, we don’t know who with and may speculate. He’s a flawed man, but he has this sticking point. From Alex Jennings, it’s a powerful commanding performance, and the role is so full of nuances that it’s one I can see actors desperately wanting to perform in future productions.

From there, I’ll hold back information. It is full of surprises. It’s an emotional roller coaster from comedy to tragedy and back. Watch the play … or even buy the text and read it. It’s full of good lines.

So to the background. The programme recognizes the importance of background with two long articles on the Church of England.

This knowing better than the mourning relatives is a recurring theme. In recent years, C of E Vicars have banned teddy bears on gravestones, refused wording on memorials, have removed children’s toys from burial places. As most parents and grandparents know, Disney Princess is a good choice here. Little girls love them. Any children’s party will be full of little Snow Whites, Cinderellas, Princess Jasmines, Beauties and Ariels. The Egyptians, the Saxons, the Vikings buried favourite items with bodies, and dolls have been found in children’s burials. Tina (Sarah Twomey), the child’s mother, wants a memory of something that was dear to her child at her funeral. It is an image she will have to live with for the rest of her life. David, the vicar, denies it’s a matter of taste, and insists he knows better what an appropriate setting is and that in the future she will come to realize this.

How do we describe Tina and Lee? They’re rural poor / underclass / chavs … all offensive terms, but that’s clearly who they are. It is a class issue then, but the entire village, the curate, the archdeacon, all recognize that it’s their grief and that it should be their choice.

There is the general issue of The Church of England. Their congregations fall inexorably and it’s a theme here that the Evangelical church in the village has a far larger congregation, which David discovers to his chagrin. It will come out in the end. Surveys indicate that about 5% of the UK population attended Easter and Christmas C of E services in 1960, while 3.5% were regular worshippers. Now attendance for both ‘regular’ and Christmas is down to 2%. It’s an awfully tiny Anglican tail wagging a very large dog. They have bishops sitting in the House of Lords, Yet in spite of such tiny active membership, they own so much of the infrastructure. In rural areas they will almost certainly run the village school, and for me, have far, far too great a say in schools in towns and cities. Friends used to choose a secondary school in Bournemouth because it was mixed boys and girls (rare here) and because it was non-denominational. Now it’s called the Bishop of Winchester school. They’re expanding their control. The church is the centre of the village in the play. Centuries old, it looms over the play set. That’s why Tina wants her child’s funeral there. The village feels (rightly) that they “own” the building just as much as the church authorities do. It’s not an urban area where they can go to a crematorium and have whatever service they want. They’re stuck with their local church, and local is important to them to celebrate Taylor’s short life. They’ve grown up in its shadow. They can see it everyday. ‘Our blood is in this Earth,’ is an important line.

Then since Princess Diana’s funeral, the instant shrine / memorial to death has magnified. You never used to see them at the site of traffic accidents, but you do nowadays. People will spend £20 or £50 buying flowers in an emotional rush of sentimentality or empathy for someone they’ve never known or met, especially when a child is involved. I said I wouldn’t spoil lines, but just the one. Lee says that the bench near their house has been covered with floral tributes to Taylor from people who never met her and who will forget her next week, then adds that it makes a change from ‘bags of dog shit.’ That struck a chord with us – if we leave any waste bins out after collection we will find bags of dog shit in them … including the paper / glass recycling and the garden waste.

It’s clear that the village is divided between weekend second-homers, or grockles, and the indigenous inhabitants. Mary, David’s wife, is descended from the local gentry. BTW, grockles is said to be a Devon / Cornwall word for strangers / tourists, but it’s what we said in Bournemouth in the 1960s too. Janet, the doctor’s wife (Hermione Gulliford) represents the upper middle class side of the village (who starts a T-shirt “Justice for Taylor” campaign for the Disney balloons too). She’s ‘spiritual rather than religious’ of course.

We were impressed by the physical casting (as well as the fine acting from every one involved). They all look right. Mary is tiny, in dowdy skirts that are too big for her, but steely determined in the face of David’s intransigence. Naomi is gorgeous and exudes sexuality. Tina is thin, scrawny almost. She only has two short scenes but they are both explosive. Lee also looks under-sized in his hoodies. David is well-preserved, well-groomed, good hair and beard. Craig, the gay curate, is smart and well-dressed. Janet is tall, dressed in clothes just a tad young for her.

Naomi and Craig both have an outside role which throws them together. Neither are rural – he’s from the council estates of Kilmarnock. She is the child of a 17 year old Afro-Caribbean mother who was adopted. They are not rural folk but both are attractive, stylish.

Susan is tall too which emphasizes her mismatch with the shorter Craig (I’ll say no more). Both Naomi and Susan have significant scenes with Craig. Joy, the police officer, is heavily pregnant.

Libby Purves five star review adds:

  This was Chichester. I very much want to see this play again, at the Bridge, and feel around me an audience probably more urban, more smugly agnostic.  Will report.

It’s a good comment. London theatres are so heavily into 50% ethnic casting that it may also be a surprise to them that Naomi is the only obvious BAME character in the play. Necessarily too, because she makes points about being adopted and how she was smothered with party invitations from parents on one hand, and abuse (from Lee) on the other. Poignantly, no one knew how to do her hair. That’s the likely ethnicity balance in a Dorset or Devon village too. If we have time in London, we may well do the same and see it again at The Bridge.

I don’t know if it happened on press night, but they lost a small number of patrons at the interval on this matinee. Three were near us close to the front. A few were dotted elsewhere. Why? I think even the most staid audience expects the F-word in the theatre. Maybe the C-word, used extremely sparingly, but with enormous power, may have been too much for those expecting a “comedy” (it’s far more than that) about a vicar. It was a matinee with an older audience profile. I find it different to evenings, but constant roadworks and night closures with long diversions between Poole and Chichester have rendered evening performances unattractive. Press night would have been an evening.

You can always find a fault. If there is one here, it is that it is completely conventional in set, scenes and staging. There is nothing innovative whatsoever in theatrical terms. They rely on the script and the acting. It’s up to the viewer to decide whether that is a fault or a virtue.

Rating is easy. We discussed it for the 90 minute drive home and when we got home. Chichester really is on a roll this year, I keep giving them five. They’re also in similar territory on religion, following Doubt a couple of months earlier.

MY RATING: *****

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

Today’s e-mail ad from The Bridge:

There’s a gap between the two reviews I read first … 5 stars in the Telegraph, 2 stars in the Guardian. We’re going with Domenic Cavendish. The negative Guardian review wanted to see those Disney balloons. We think that too obvious. Then we do know what they look like without visual aids.

Five star
Domenic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph *****

Libby Purves, British Theatre / theatre.cat *****
Quentin Letts, Sunday Times ***** (Bridge Theatre)

four star
Clive Davis, The Times ****
Gary Naylor, Broadway World ****
Gareth Carr, What’s On Stage ****
Paul Seven Lewis, One Minute Theatre ****
three star
Patrick Marmion, Daily Mail ***
two star
Ryan Gilbey, The Guardian **

LINKS ON THIS BLOG:

NICHOLAS HYTNER
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bridge Theatre, 2019
Young Marx, by Richard Bean & Clive Coleman, Bridge Theatre 2017
Othello, National Theatre, 2013
Hamlet, National Theatre, 2010
People, by Alan Bennett, National Theatre on tour 2013

ALEX JENNINGS
Munich – The Edge of War (FILM)

JO HERBERT
The Country Wife, Minerva Chichester 2018
For Services Rendered, by Somerset Maugham, Chichester 2015 (Ethel)
Candida, by Shaw, Bath 2013
The Game of Love & Chance by Marivaux, Salisbury 2011 (Lisette)

SARAH TWOMEY
The Provoked Wife, RSC 2019
Twelfth Night, RSC 2017
The Seagull, Chichester, 2015
Platonov, Chichester 2015
Venice Preserved, RSC 2019

HERMIONE GULLIFORD
Love For Love, by Congreve, RSC 2015
The Way Of The World (as Mrs Marwood) Chichester 2012

JOSH FINAN
The Merry Wives of Windsor, RSC 2018
Macbeth, RSC 2018