CROWN PRINCE. To 23 June.

Hull

CROWN PRINCE
by John Godber

Hull Truck Theatre To 23 June 2007
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 20 June 2pm
Runs 2hr 5min One interval

TICKETS: 01482 323638
www.hulltruck.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 June

Godber turns up the heat.
Though not as packed with local references as recent Truck shows Dave Windass’s Sully or Richard Bean’s Up on Roof, John Godber’s new comedy is certainly written with his adopted home in mind. And it comes close in some respects to his fellow Yorkshire-coast playwright/director, Alan Ayckbourn.

Like Aychbourn, Godber opens with an apparently ordered social group; they’re playing bowls, a sport linked with advanced age and calm of mind, all passion spent. Any calm soon disperses, as unhappy Jack loses, again, to club-act turned TV-personality Ronnie. Past troubles emerge: redundancy, bereavement, guilt. Meanwhile time moves forward as the main characters age from their fifties and sixties to their seventies and eighties.

Godber’s moving into his own fifties and, like Ayckbourn around that age, is becoming more than a mite dystopic. As the years edge ahead beyond the 2012 London Olympics (repeated jeremiads they did nothing for Hull), limbs become creaky, Bowls clubs all around shut down and Global Warming simmers.

Eventually, as heart-attacks and creaky limbs affect the members (and encourage acting that might move anyone able to wield a Zimmer to violence), the green needs artificial resuscitation and the barbed-wire goes up as the coast collapses into the sea and their high-ground location becomes the kind of place local refugees are seeking out.

Where Ayckbourn would develop situations, Godber prefers to set each new one and decorate it with humour. He leaves a fair amount to be picked-up by audiences as years and events roll by. The play’s all the better for it.

There are, naturally enough, plenty of hilarious lines and each act ends with a moment of strong visual comedy. An experienced Spring Street cast play heartily, joined by ex-Truck Youth Theatre member Hester Ulyart, who needs to articulate more clearly at speed but could be a valuable future Godberite. Robert Angell is dignified as the title character who’s been, seen and experienced twice as much of everything as anyone else, though he’s no longer ahead at the game. I suspect the play began more focused on him, but it’s broadened its interests, to the good.

Jack: Robert Angell
Ted: Martin Barrass
Max: Jack Brady
May/Caroline: Sarah Parks
Ronnie: Iain Rogerson
Faye: Hester Ullyart

Director: John Godber
Designer: Pip Leckenby
Lighting: Graham Kirk
Costume: Samantha Robinson

2007-06-18 11:37:34