ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR. To 13 December.

Bath.

ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR
by Alan Ayckbourn.

Theatre Royal To 13 December 2008.
Mon-Wed 7.30pm Thu-Sat 8pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm.
Runs 2hr 20min Two intervals.

TICKETS: 01225 448844.
www.theatreroyal.org.uk
Review: Alan Geary: 24 November 2008 at Theatre Royal Nottingham.

Quintessential Ayckbourn, and a very classy production.
The only excuse you can plead for not enjoying this production of one of Alan Ayckbourn’s most noted plays is that you don’t much care for Ayckbourn. This is quintessential Ayckbourn.

It’s a sharply observed, very black comedy about middle-class preoccupations and anxieties and about the relationship between the sexes inside marriage. And under Alan Strachan’s direction it’s a very classy production in terms of acting standards - there’s admirable subtlety in every performance - and set design.

Over three consecutive Christmases, one act for each, three married couples relate to each other, taking turns to be in the ascendancy. Each act is set in a different kitchen, all splendidly in early seventies period but each reflective of its owners’ personalities. The first is a boring fitted job; the second a stripped pine tip of a place with a filthy cooker; the third looks like a room in a converted monastery.

It’s funny throughout, but as it proceeds the comedy grows darker and edgier, sinister even: at times you don’t know whether you really ought to be laughing. That final image of Sidney (Matthew Cottle), who finishes the play as a power-crazed martinet standing on the table to humiliate the others, stays with you.

Perhaps the best performance comes from Honeysuckle Weeks, as Eva, the pill-popping neurotic with suicidal inclinations, who by the end of the play has got the better of egotistical husband Geoffrey (Marc Bannerman). And, as a square-jawed bank manager Ronald, to whom everyone initially fawns but who turns out to be vulnerable, bewildered and humane, David Griffin is sparkling.

It’s all splendidly seventies, not just in terms of stripped pine and flares. Marriage doesn’t seem so important nowadays, and nor does the necessity to suck up to local big noises to get on in business.

Jane: Sara Crowe.
Sidney: Matthew Cottle.
Eva: Honeysuckle Weeks.
Geoffrey: Marc Bannerman.
Marion: Deborah Grant.
Ronald: David Griffin.

Director: Alan Strachan.
Designer: Michael Pavelka.
Lighting: Jason Taylor.
Sound: Ian Horrocks-Taylor.
Costume: Brigid Guy.

2008-11-26 00:51:11