A GARDEN FETE. To 11 September.

Eye

A GARDEN FETE
by Alan Ayckbourn

Eye Theatre To 11 September 2004
Tue-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 4pm
Runs 2hr One interval

TICKETS: 01379 870519
boxoffice@eyetheatre.freeserve.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 September

One version of many in people's possible life-stories receives a happy outing.With just two actors and multiple variations branching from the same opening (a woman decides whether to smoke a cigarette as the door-bell rings), Alan Ayckbourn's 1982 Intimate Exchanges offers a parade of small choices affecting people's lives. Eye Theatre's offered 7 of the 8 options; regulars coming to A Garden Fete may recognise its early scenes, shared with other plays in the set.

The 4 scenes here are more like two plus prologue and epilogue. A private school encumbered with a tipsy headteacher and an incompetent, self-aggrandising groundsman, puts on a fete to raise funds for the nearby tottering church tower. Ayckbourn's device is that roles are all shared between one male and one female actor. Far from constricting, it creates the pleasures of seeing the actors create different roles and seeing if they can keep up the quick-changes (something the playwright later took to the ultimate in the simultaneous performances in two adjacent theatres of House and Garden).

But for all the theatrical fun, this is perhaps Ayckbourn's most serious fete scene; someone's whole future is decided amid an afternoon's fun. In this version of events, the outcome's optimistic.

Krystal Archer is too young for Celia Teasdale, the headmaster's wife, her boredom expressed through conventional elegance ridiculous hats and pretentious high street sub-fashions. Archer's voice sounds superimposed here. But she's a natural for ignorant local girl Sylvie, natural in slumping stance and questioning vocal manner half assertion, half embarrassment.

Sylvie's rising prospects provide the play's sole upwards trajectory, aided by the speeded-up time-scheme (between scenes time advances 5 days, months, years respectively). Archer allows Sylvie's quest for knowledge, and inner resources to emerge naturally. Only her attempted smart walk is unconvincingly panto-like.

Richard Mainwaring convincingly varies voice and physical manner as the alcohol-heavy Toby, the insidiously over-confident groundsman Lionel and Joe Lionel's wheelchair-bound dad full of low country cunning. Tom Scott's production tends to confine action to a small corner of the stage, but the comedy and character are evident and good use is made of this splendid theatre's ability to give a sense of place to lines played offstage.

Celia/Sylvia: Krystal Archer
Lionel/Toby/Joe: Richard Mainwaring

Director: Tom Scott
Lighting: David Hermon

2004-09-06 23:50:56