Writer: Stewart Pringle

Director: Matthew Parker

Stewart Pringle’s 2017 play debuted at Southwark Playhouse and won that year’s Papatango Award and was last seen as a live stream via YouTube in 2021 and a short run at Jack Studio. So it’s good to see it back now on stage with a receptive audience.

On the surface, it’s about two people and a table in a Yorkshire village hall. Actually, it’s about friendship, finding pathways through life and considering might-have-beens.

Harry (Timothy Harker) is chairman of the Village Improvements Committee. He’s a bit pompous, fussy, inhibited, unsure of himself and set in his ways as a widower. Denise (Jilly Bond) is an energetic 63-year-old who teaches a Zumba class which runs in the hall after Harry’s meetings. She’s warm and comfortable in her own body although not, we eventually learn, all that happy with her life situation in general.

At first, there’s a lot of awkwardness between them. Gradually over several months, they thaw and – with a lot of misunderstanding and some comedy – eventually establish a friendship of sorts. Most of the dialogue is deceptively banal but laden with subtext.

He, for example, is clearly attracted to her but held back by diffidence and very upset to learn that she’s married. She sits in on one of his meetings and discovers that it’s just a load of nimby-ish hot air. That means political tension between them and the second half is darker after a very funny scene at the end of the first half when she teaches him Zumba and he visibly relaxes and improves.

Both actors are convincing with an especially fine performance from Bond who has played this role before – with smiles, grimaces, elasticity and some evocative expressions when she looks away from Harry and reveals what she’s really feeling.

Andy Graham’s soundtrack is effective: lots of loud pop for the Zumba, obviously, because as Denise says “You can’t do this to Brahms” but Graham subtly pops in a few bars of Brahms later in the piece as the mood changes. Also imaginative is the lighting by Laurel Marks, especially in the final few moments when for the only time in the play, the action leaves the village hall and shifts to a garden.

Trestle is a tad too long for its subject matter and the continuous putting up and down of the Gopak table gets to seem tediously irritating but the piece is clearly determined to live up to its title. On the whole, though, it’s an entertaining piece.

Runs until 8 March 2025