Bedroom Farce - Crescent theatre

Date seen: 28/01/12

Venue: Crescent theatre - Birmingham.  A traditional style theatre in the city centre. A nice, slightly curved stage and plenty of seats. A well run coffee bar/bar with plenty of room to relax before the show.

Set: Three bedrooms and nicely spaced apart. At three slightly different levels, it was quite effective and the wallpaper decoration was superb. All three rooms were functional and well dressed.

Costumes: All very 1970's. Wide collared shirts and kipper ties. Dresses that I thought were quite horrible until I remembered tat they were the height of fashion for the time.

Plot: Bedroom Farce is a play that contains a melee of events touched with certain philandering characters, all occurring within similar moments of one another. Alan Ayckbourn’s clever uses of time and space makes this a very intricate and sophisticated comedy while also portraying the deteriorating and rebuilding of relationships among young couples. This play explores the differences in relationships between the younger and older generations while capitalizing on certain unlikely issues that may strain the relationships even further. 

Performances: Ernest (John Whittell) - A performance that grew on me tremendously. A shaky couple of lines at the start of each act, he then moved on to give a beautifully judged, gentle perforance with a magnificent display of comic timing. In hindsight, the performance I enjoyed the most.

Delia (Pauline O'Connor) - A perfect foil to Ernest. This couples gentle delivery was perfect for the older characters that they were playing. Delia's line about sleeping on a herring trawler had me giggling all the way home.

Jan (Susan Keats) - The one performance that didn't really do it for me. She was bang on cue with ll her lines, but this is a complex character and I never felt that this was fully explored. The actress seemed slightly uncomfortable throughout the play and her passionate kiss with Trevor seemed to come from nowhere and didn't really ring true.

Nick (Jeremy Wyatt) - 90% of the time, this character was lying in bed. He made up for this with tremendous expression and very good projection and comedy. The scene where he fell out of bed & tried to get back in were a joy.

Kate (Jen Meeghan) - Another delightful performance. She saw the best in everybody and also showed great comic timing. An absolute delight.

Malcolm (Paul Brotherton) - A face and voice made for comedy! This actor brought a tremendous energy to all his scenes and really helped bring the show to life in the early stages.

Trevor (James David Knapp) - The centerpiece really and another well judged performance. I couldn't help thinking how similar he is to Martin Freeman in size, look and delivery. Loved his 1970's facial sideburns.

Sussanah (Paula Wall) - Another very strong comic performance. This is a slightly screwed up character and I think I might have asked for her to be played as slightly more manic, but I thoroughly enjoyed her performance.

Summary: Very well produced & directed and clearly a huge amount of work had gone into rehearsals. It skipped along at a helthy pace and was very well acted with a great looking, functional set and props that were all spot on. I went home with a smile on my face, dreaming of pilchards on toast. 

Joking apart - Union theatre

Date seen:  Friday January 13th

Venue Union Theatre, London - Extraordinary little venue set under a railway arch. A small cafe is set in front of the dooe which sits a handful of people but sells coffee at a more than reasonable price. A small bar is just inside the entrance. The theatre seemed to sit about 50 people and it was sold out with folk awaiting returns. The set is right in front of you, a feature that I love! The thunder of trains can often be heard but this just added to the character.

Set: Excellent, considering the lack of space. The tennis court was well depicted and the garden was functional without being spectacular.

Costumes: Very good. The tennis shorts were almost embarrassingly short put perfect for the period. Sven & Olive's Christmas jumpers were the pick of the bunch.

Plot: The play takes place over a 12-year period in the back garden of near-perfect couple Richard and Anthea, whose circle of friends includes a smug Scandinavian couple, a crisis-stricken Vicar and his neurotic wife, a neglected girlfriend and an aging lothario.

Performances:  

Richard (Jamie Kenna) Nicely judged performance. Solid, consistently cheerful and yet obviously in control of everything around him.

Anthea (Claire Marlowe) Sparky, funny, very pretty. This was a hugely watchable performance. She had a habit of flicking up the back of her left ankle that was positively endearing.

Sven (Andrew Obeney) A performance that grew on me. He played a Scandanavian. His accent seemed to have a touch of an Al Pacino gangster to it. But he played the later scenes superbly and his long speech at Debbie's birthday party was priceless.

Olive (Charlotte Moore) A character that never seemed to develop. The actress was solid enough, but the character never really grew on me.

Hugh (Jamie Richards)  Stole every scene that he was in. It was like watching Hugh Grant with his mannerisms and delivery. Very, very funny.

Louise (Monica Bertei) Played a mousy, vicar's wife early on who clearly didn't want to mix with the neighbours and her insecurity was nicely portrayed. Her scene 4 performance when under medication that wasn't quite right was marvelous and extremely funny showing this actresses's obvious range.

Brian (Paul Anthoney) Okay, but at his best in the opening scene. Debbie suggests that there's something leery about him, but I never really got that and because of this, the final line of the play fell rather flat.

Mo/Mandy/Melody/Debbie (Antonia Reid)  So much more could have been made of this part. I never bought the brash Canadian, she fell in and out of drunkenness in that scene despite a few nice moments, the silent artist was nicely done however. In my opinion, she was miscast as there's no way that she would pass for playing an 18 year old. Sorry!

Summery: The first time I'd seen this play. Typical Ayckbourn, so I left happy. A very enjoyable evening at a unique venue that I very much hope to return to. I can't wait to see this play again to see how different groups interpret it.