James Simmons (Philip), Lianne Harvey (Ginny), Rachel Fielding (Sheila) and Christopher Bonwell (Greg). Photo: Steve Gregson

No Sardines reader needs me to remind him or her that Alan Ayckbourn’s 1965 hit is a terrific comedy. It’s immaculately constructed and with a fine cast, directed by Robin Herford – a long time collaborator with Ayckbourn – the piece is in very good hands. Every joke, nuance and misunderstanding is timed and delivered with practised aplomb – although the programme note makes me long to have seen the original 1987 West End production with Michael Hordern, Celia Johnson and Richard Briers.

We are, of course, not far from Brian Rix territory – which dates from the same era. It’s the comedy of misunderstanding in which – a refined form of dramatic irony – the audience sees through what the characters on stage are saying and doing and understands what’s really going on long before they do. Thus a raised eyebrow, a twitch of the lips, stunned silence or fixed smile all become hilarious. It’s old fashioned now but my goodness it still works. I haven’t laughed so much in ages. This mood-lifting old favourite is an ideal choice for a post Pandemic winter programme.

So, just in case, you’ve been in hiding for the last 56 years: The four hander play gives us two couples one young, and thinking about marriage, and the other middle aged with infidelity in the wings. Of course there’s a connection but no one tells the whole truth to anyone else. Three of the four scenes take place in the older couple’s glorious, sunny garden in the home counties to which the younger couple have come, separately, by train.

James Simmons as the older man, Philip, can communicate his exasperation, anxiety, embarrassment, cunning and a lot more with the merest flicker as he charges on and off in search of his lost hoe. And he turns running his hand through his hair or across his face into an art form.  Rachel Fielding, as his wife Sheila fussing with the accoutrements of prosperous middleclass life is a joy to watch too. She plays up to the stereotype but is also gloriously knowing when she stops dead, tray, coffee pot or whatever in hand and simply looks. We can actually see her thinking.

Christopher Bonwell’s disingenuous Greg is great fun. He does funny voices to cover his innocence and inexperience. You can see why Lianne Harvey as Ginny is taken with him – even as she gets ever further enmeshed in her own web of lies. Harvey brings seriousness to her muddled character and does a good line in shocked horror. All four actors work well together delivering this beautifully written dialogue to life on stage so that it’s as frothily funny as ever. I hope this enjoyable production will attract new comers to the play as well as old timers.

A little girl finds a turtle in her bath and then an orang-u-tan in her bedroom. “There’s a rang-tan in my bedroom and I don’t know what to do” she says. We hear the orang-u-tan (voiced by Sophie Thompson) and a jaguar says repeatedly “There are humans in my forest and I don’t know what to do. The turtle makes the same complaint about “my ocean”. Puppets sensitively operated by Ajjaz Awad and Aya Nakamura convey a real sense of vulnerability.

The 45-minute piece concludes with three suggestions drawn (sort of) from children in the audience: avoid palm oil, recycle and reuse as much as possible and eat less meat.

I especially liked the jaguar puppet which has huge feet and a nice stripey tail and the creation (design by Kate Bunce) of a minature domestic set including bed bath, lavatory and filled fridge all on moveable counter tops.

But the loudest cheer goes to the small boy who stood up at the end and declared that the palm oil industry must be stopped. “It destroys the environment and it isn’t good for you” he said.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/theres-a-rang-tan-in-my-bedroom-and-other-stories/

This was the 140th performance of Mark Farrelly’s moving, hilarious sensitive 2013 play about that most flamboyant of gay men: Quentin Crisp.  I liked Farrelly’s two hander Howerd’s End last year and admired his acting, but this post-Pandemic revival of the earlier show is glitteringly good.

Crisp, of course, beneath the outrageous banter and the witty one liners was a deeply troubled man never allowed to be himself. And it’s that poignant  ambivalence which Farrelly nails exquisitely both as playwright and actor.

The play – modelled on the shows Crisp did in New York once he’d become famous – falls into two halves. At first Crisp acts out and tells the story of his own life, including his brief career as a rent boy, living in a squalid (“after four years the dust doesn’t get any worse”) bedsit and, always dressed like a bird of paradise, being the victim of frequent homophobic attacks. Farrelly has the young Crisp’s voice perfectly – measured, effeminate and rising to a sing song high note in almost every sentence. He also hops briefly in and out of other roles when he’s describing an incident.

Then the lights dim and Farrelly changes into more formal, louche but fairly conventional clothes and a grey wig. Now we’re in New York and the older Crisp is entertaining an audience and answering questions with, by how, well practised wicked punchlines. The voice has matured and is slightly more even now. The care with which Farrelly has observed these subtleties is awe inspiring.

Watching him is like being present at an acting masterclass not least because he has to work the audience sometimes with a moment of ad-libbing because at Crazy Coqs at Zedel Brasserie where I caught this show, the audience is seated very close at tables, cabaret style. There was also an audience incident at the performance I attended which Farrelly dealt with expertly before moving on.

Five stars indicates that this is an unmissable show of its type. Of course it’s very different from, say, South Pacific at Chichester or a full blooded Shakespeare interpretation by the RSC but, compared with the many one person, low budget shows I have seen, Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope is extraordinary.

This review was first published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/quentin-crisp-naked-hope/

Chichester Festival Theatre’s first co-production with Lyric Hammersmith is arresting. However many times you see Martin McDonagh’s 1996 play about a mother and daughter viciously fighting their corners at home against a background of Ireland still bleeding into Britain and America, it packs a huge dramatic punch. As a gut-tearing tragedy it’s up there with the top ten.

In this production director Rachel O’Riordan makes fine use of the Minerva’s square-ish playing space so that the action moves seamlessly from upstage to downstage with little sense of fourth wall – and the set by Good Teeth Theatre  connotes a shabby, lonely, small town, 1990s Irish home which is anything but cosy. Even a newcomer to the play will sense that the stove and poker aren’t being flagged up for nothing.

The emotions within that home are angry, violent, frustrated – and hopeless. We laugh at the truth of all that and at the blunt way the women speak to each other. The tragedy lies in the fact that – briefly – there is hope. Then it is snatched away.

There’s a great deal of silent communication in this production. Ingrid Craigie as Mag can tell us almost everything we need to know just by glaring or simpering. As an elderly, semi-invalid mother she should invite sympathy. Actually she is a cunning, manipulative, selfish liar. She doesn’t deserve her fate but it’s hard to feel too sorry for her and Craigie, hobbling about – and demonstrably able to do more for herself than she does because she’s lazy –  gets that whining ambivalence perfectly. And you can almost smell her oft-mentioned urine infection.

Orla Fitzgerald as Maureen, the long suffering furious carer/daughter, speaks volumes through her silences by banging cups of tea and bowls of lumpy Complan down for her mother. She ensures that we really do feel for her plight. These women may be mother and daughter but there is no love, affection or tenderness between them and that’s partly where the shock of this play comes from. It’s “unnatural” but oh so recognisable when two people are thrust into a situation like this and each of them has needs which the other can’t possibly meet.

There’s a lovely performance from Adam Best as the gentle, caring, not particularly confident Pete. The scene in which he listens to  Maureen poignantly explaining her feelings shows him really hearing her and it’s very moving. His letter writing soliloquy is deeply touching too. Kwaku Fortune, as Pete’s swaggering impatient, intolerant younger brother makes the best of his scenes with both the women and ensures that we see them from a different perspective. It’s a multifaceted play and this production stresses that.

Of course, the accents and dialectal syntax are strongly Irish which makes for occasional audibility problems partly because  the shape of the playing space actors are sometimes facing away from some of the audience. Occasionally it is difficult to tune into the pitch of the voices but that’s a minor gripe in what is, otherwise, a meaty interpretation of a powerful  play.