ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR. To 2 October.

Oldham

ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR
by Alan Ayckbourn

Coliseum Theatre To 2 October 2004
Tue-Thu;Sat 7.30pm Fri 8pm Mat 22 Sept 2pm 2 Oct 2.30pm
Audio-described 23 Sept
BSL Signed 22 Sept 7.30pm
Post-show Talkout 21 Sept
Spotlight Talk 22 Sept 11.30am-1pm + 2pm Mat
Runs 2hr 35min Two intervals

TICKETS: 0161 624 2829
Review: Timothy Ramsden 18 September

An APS that needs the APS: Ayckbourn Protection Society.Director Janice Dunn arrives from Colchester Mercury's renowned ensemble, where she recently directed a fine Marivaux. She brings that production's heroine, Shuna Snow, to one of Alan Ayckbourn's finest comedies. It sounds good. Yet, in theatre, you never can tell.

Worries start with Sarah Burton's set, bordered with unrealistic emblematic devices which suggest that without their presence the author cannot convey, nor the audience pick up, the point. This in a piece where three contrasting kitchens visited on three successive Christmas Eves give ample opportunity to make character points without the bulldozing intrusion either side of Christmas wreaths, plus a huge, green-wrapped, red-ribbon tied present looming over the scene.

Such designs might once have carried a theatrical frisson, but they're a style that long ago became a wearisome distraction from, rather than intensification of, the action. And Burton makes enough points in her colour schemes. The Hopcrafts' garish green modernity against which Snow's green-clad Jane (for whom eternal housework would be a life-sentence to Paradise) is suitably camouflaged. Purple, red and pine modishness for the Jacksons. And the faded pale lime of the Brewster-Wrights, against which Sidney, an on-the-make merchant who's made-it, has everyone embarrassed and discomforted playing his ridiculous party game. This play foresaw the coming shift in the English society more than many more overtly political pieces of its early-going-on-mid-seventies period.

Fine actor as she is, Snow is more a Marivaux Princess than the mouse-like Jane, whom she resembles neither in voice nor bearing. Yet, with James Nickerson's Sidney, they at least suggest a relationship, she initially seeming to lead the household, his jocose manner and pliable movements hardening into command touched by genuine affection. They are the only pair to have affectionate physical contact in the earlier acts, Jane's nudge to Sidney motivating his joining in The Twelve Days of Christmas' at the end of the central act's downbeat hilarity.

The other couples are entirely unconvincing - as if set, costume, moves and lines had all progressed while any emotional involvement or understanding of characters had been left where they were at the first rehearsal. Strange.

Geoffrey: Justin Grattan
Eva: Clare Humphrey
Marion: Helen Kay
Sid: James Nickerson
Ronald: Martin Reeve
Jane: Shuna Snow

Director: Janice Dunn
Designer: Sarah Burton
Lighting: Phil Davies
Sound: Daniel Ogden

2004-09-20 02:54:36