BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS. To 4 October.

Oldham

BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS
by Neil Simon

Coliseum Theatre To 4 October 2003
Mon-Thu;Sat 7.30pm Fri 8pm
Audio-described 24 September
BSL Signed/Talk-out post-show discussion 23 September
Runs 2hr 35min One interval

TICKETS: 0161 624 2829
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 September

Strong start to the Coliseum season with a fine revival of Simon's fictionalised slice of biography.Neil Simon's had people laughing since the 1950s when he contributed to American radio and TV comedy: his Laughter on the 23rd Floor hilariously recalls the former will he also get round to writing the play about scripting Phil Silvers' Bilko series? His alliterative trilogy (this play being followed by army life in Biloxi Blues and the road to dramaturgy with Broadway Bound) mixes a reflective note with the comedy. Both elements are caught in Natalie Wilson's fine revival.

You can tell this family's Jewish. If it weren't so entertaining you could fill your evening counting the apologies and other guilt references. It's also an affirmation of family values, not in any cosy advertiser's fake paradise, but with all the rubs and frictions that can strengthen, rather than wear out, the human spirit.

Older brother Stan gambles his pay-check away and runs out for a night. Aunt Blanche's husband died; she and her daughters live with the Jeromes, Blanche doing sewing as a homeworker always aware she's is someone else's home. Though Kate would never remind her.

Their presence especially pretty Nora - affects puberty-rising Eugene, the delightfully named younger son who steps from the play's reality to give us 'present-day' narrated comment on this late 30s household. The name's ironic; he's clearly the 'Neil Simon' character with his interest in writing, but who could be further from Simon's expertly crafted comedies two-dimensional in the best sense than Eugene O' Neill, raw and hairy rough beast probing character depth in American theatre?

This isn't affluent America father Jack struggles with two jobs (he's first seen sweatily carrying impossible heavy loads from work). And he loses one when the firm making party trinkets goes bust. No wonder he suffers a heart-attack. Kate makes do with cheap meat. So it's a final triumph for underlying cohesion when they can rejoice at the prospect of more family arriving, as the Polish branch escapes Nazism (you only have to see Polanski's film The Pianist to know what the alternative would have been).

It's fitting Dawn Allsopp's set crowds the stage the script demands dooryard and living-room (clearly distinguished by the colours of Phil Davies' lighting, with its chilly outside and warm interior) plus two upstairs bedrooms. This isn't a roomy existence; people can't avoid each other. Only Kate's kitchen's unseen - from where subsistence always, near magically, issues.

Michael Imerson's slightly laid back in narration mode, not sloughing off the teenager he is in the play's main time-frame, but gives a clear sense of Eugene's half-understanding of goings-on as a youngster. And everyone else is fine the confessional showdown between Rachel Grimshaw's Nora and Kerry Peers as her mother has a rare, still intensity. Susan Twist encompasses both Kate's tough-speaking manner and warm heart, while Paul McCleary gives a precisely-spun combination of wisdom and resilience that earns and gives respect. Happy Memoirs all round.

Laurie: Lindsay Allen
Nora: Rachel Grimshaw
Eugene: Michael Imerson
Stan: Andrew Langtree
Jack: Paul McCleary
Aunt Blanche: Kerry Peers
Kate: Susan Twist

Director: Natalie Wilson
Designer Dawn Allsopp
Lighting: Phil Davies
Sound: Anna Holly
Dialect coach: Mark Langley

2003-09-17 09:05:58