★★★★

William Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton were gay, transvestite actors (‘Fanny’ and ‘Stella’ respectively) whose 1880s trial for indecency ended in acquittal. This revival of Glenn Chandler’s 2015 musical account of their story is sparkily funny, enjoyably explicit and neatly staged.

Steven Dexter’s thoughtful direction makes deft use of an accomplished cast of six with a lot of slick, unfussy scene shifts and Brechtian acting. Christian Andrews, for example slips effortlessly between the physicality of Fanny’s overbearing father, a judge, and the camp Lord Arthur Clinton among other roles and Mark Pearce, both hilarious and talented, delights as impresario, Mr Grimes, who ‘apologetically’ plays lots of other nicely hammed up minor characters.

At the heart of the action Keiran Parrott as Stella minces, simpers and says outrageous things with a wonderfully wicked, complicit grin which manages to include every audience member. As Fanny, Tobias Charles is larger, softer and more complex. In conversation with his father, the character drops most of the archly camp manner. When performing, or in company with, Stella he is complementarily and exaggeratedly effeminate. Charles has a richly resonant voice and shines as the best singer in the cast.

Charles Miller’s music delights. He is clearly a man who knows his Sullivan and many of the numbers, ably accompanied on piano by musical director, Aaron Clingham, are ripplingly tuneful. There’s an appropriate, catchy music hall flavour to a lot of this music too and I walked back to Oval tube afterwards, singing Sodomy in the Stand to myself. Best of all is the clarity of the diction with which these songs are sung. Every word is crisp – and because the words are so witty they become the backbone of the show.

Yes, this piece is comic but of course it also makes some serious points for 2019. Winning the court case is, in a sense, a breakthough. There’s a poignant line at the end, however, about a time in the near future when people like Fanny and Stella will be free to be themselves. It isn’t as though they’ll have to wait another century or anything, comments Stella with a rueful look at the audience.

★★★★

Never let it be said, or even hinted at, that Hugh Bonneville is a lightweight actor. As we saw two years ago in the Chichester Festival Theatre production of The Enemy of the People, he can do serious stuff to the manner born. His performance as CS Lewis is variously warm, moving, incisive, occasionally funny and beautifully judged – and, under Rachel Kavanaugh’s direction, it makes for a pretty special piece of theatre.

William Nicholson’s play tells the story of the unlikely relationship and marriage between CS Lewis – academic, theologically inclined specialist in mediaeval literature, conservative Christian and children’s novelist – and American divorcee, Joy Gresham. The play, originally written for TV and then adapted for screen (1993) and stage, is a powerful depiction of bereavement and loss as Lewis grieves first for his mother and now for his wife with whom he has just three years before cancer takes her. The sound of Bonneville consumed with despair and weeping, hugged by his young stepson (Eddie Martin on press night – good) will haunt me for quite a while.

Liz White gives us a feisty, sassy, funny, forthright Joy and you can see why Lewis eventually falls for her although I was unconvinced by her American accent. And there are strong support performances from Andrew Havill as Lewis’s stalwart, supportive, reliable brother Warnie and from Timothy Watson as the sneering, sceptical academic friend who eventually thaws a little in sympathy. All of them deliver the funnier, leavening, put downs and witty bits of self-deprecation with rapier-skill. These characters are highly educated people who can do charismatic things with words and Nicholson’s script makes the most of that.

Peter McKintosh’s set is simply lovely. There’s a big book lined back screen to suggest Lewis’s study or the college common room and sheer magic when it parts for a few moments to reveal the soft silvery tree of Narnia – in which the child, Douglas Gresham, is imaginatively lost. The downstage lamp post quietly tells a story too.

Bravo, Chichester Festival Theatre. Another fine production.

Photo: Manuel Harlan

★★★★

This pair of 90-minute three-handers in repertory, both dating from 1888, form a Strindberg double bill. A quartet of actors play six roles. I saw the two shows back to back: a matinee of Creditorsfollowed by Miss Julie in the evening.

The most striking thing is how well and how naturalistically these four actors – under Tom Littler’s direction – play off each other in Jermyn Street Theatre’s intimate performance space.

It will be a while, for example, before I forget David Sturzaker as Gustaf in Creditors watching with feigned impassivity as Dorothea Myer-Bennett as Tekla howls impotently as her husband (James Sheldon) dies on the floor. Sturzaker’s Gustaf has deliberately destroyed both the others. Now he stands unnaturally still. Only the blinking of his eyes hints at his thoughts. It’s a fine performance from an excellent actor. It’s unusual too to see an actor mopping real tears at curtain call but it’s what Myer-Bennett has to do here. Her Tekla is brittle, amusing, risk-taking and, eventually, utterly distraught.

Both plays are co-produced with Theatre by the Lake where they ran earlier this year and this production of Miss Julie, now further developed but only marginally, had a run at Jermyn Street last year. Seeing it again immediately after Creditors places it in a different context.

It is always interesting, for instance, to see actors in two different roles which is what you get here with Sheldon and Myer-Bennett who play Jean and Kristin respectively in the second play. And their versatility and range are a real joy. Sheldon is a vulnerable, easily manipulated, gullible sculptor in Creditors and then the ruthlessly self-interested servant, Jean in Miss Julie. Together these two roles are a huge undertaking but Sheldon meets the challenge head-on with charismatic conviction and lots of colour. Myer Bennett gives us a Kristin who is assured, dignified, affectionate and knowing in great contrast to her earlier Tekla.

Charlotte Hamblin, reviving her Miss Julie role, struts, pouts, weeps and despairs of being trapped in her father’s grand house for ever. She finds all the right capricious, tragic, volatility. Miss Julie certainly is “raving mad” as Jean expresses it at the beginning but that won’t stop him trying to exploit both her troubled sexuality and her status.

The sets – one an early 20th Century hotel room and the other, of course, a kitchen – by Louie Whitemore are aptly detailed for both including some real cooking (steam and smell) in Miss Julie. And I love those costumes: especially Myer Bennett’s elegant turquoise two piece in Creditors and her church-going outfit in Miss Julie.

These plays, in this format, make vibrant theatre and are well worth catching.

Miss Julie. Photo: Robert Day

★★★

Originally staged at Crucible, Sheffield in 2013. This six-hander musical is quite touching. Three generations of a family are well characterised and observed with affectionate accuracy by Tim ‘Calendar Girls’ Firth. The whole point is that this is the everyday drama of ordinary life as lived by real people.

Nicky, 13, (KIrsty MacLaren) introduces the family she sees, as a young teenager would, as wildly disfunctional. Her parents Yvonne (Clare Burt) and Steve (James Nesbitt) met at 16 and, surprisingly stuck together. Their older child Matt (Scott Folan) is having an identity crisis. Steve’s mother May (Sheila Hancock) is succumbing to dementia and Yvonne’s sister Sian (Rachel Lumburg) has yet another exciting new boyfriend.

In places it’s very funny. The number in which Lumburg’s ebullient character compares sex with a new boyfriend to getting into the drivers seat of a brand new car – driving the metaphor home with ever funnier innuendo as she goes along – is a high spot. So, in a driving rain, slapstick sort of way, is the whole issue of trying to erect a tent in Act II when the family goes camping together. Scott Folan’s foray into Gothic-ness and a druidical marriage is hilarious too but it’s also a nice portrayal of youthful vulnerability and angst – with much stomping about and door slamming.

Sheila Hancock gives a stirling performance, singing in a sweet by quivery voice, looking vacant and then, occasionally, delivering unexpected rapier lines. Clare Burt’s Yvonne is a nicely rounded mum, impatient but caring and still exasperatedly fond of her Steve who is hopeless at DIY, given to crazes and making himself look daft. She’s a convincing daughter-in-law too – slightly distant but dutiful and secretly wishing the old bat dead. Nesbitt’s is a strong performance even down to his terrible driving. MacLaren, very petite, is totally plausible as the observing semi-narrator and youngest family member.

The piece consists mostly of repetitive sung dialogue or monologue rather than discrete songs or numbers so apart from MacLaren’s oft repeated ‘This is My Family’ motif, it’s melodically unmemorable. And singing voices are pretty ordinary. It’s the acting which carries the show. Musically the strongest element is the seven piece band over the stage led by MD Caroline Humphris from keyboard – lots of eloquent string work and lyrical woodwind. Tom Firth is no mean composer and I loved the repeated reference to Parry’s tune Repton (Dear Lord and Father of Mankind) to connote May’s church going and love of hymns.

I also liked Richard Kent’s set. On one side is the fussiness of a three story house with stairs to the upper levels. Then it revolves to reveal a wood with huge conifers – a perfect campsite for a family holiday on a wet night,

This is My Family is an enjoyable piece of theatre although it isn’t earth shattering.

Photo: Johan Persson