DAISY PULLS IT OFF. To 8 June.
London
DAISY PULLS IT OFF
by Denise Deegan
Lyric Theatre To 8 June 2002
Mon-Sat 7.30 Mats Thur & Sat 2.3pm
Runs 2hr 25min One interval
TICKETS 0870 890 1107
Review Timothy Ramsden 1 May
Sparkling revival of a damned fine public schoolgirl yarn: corridors, class and common rooms creak with renewed unreality.Twenty years ago, elderly, precisely-spoken ladies in south England's affluent suburbs and retirement bungalows rejoiced that the recently returned Conservatives under the best old gal of them all, Margaret Thatcher, seemed determined to put moral fibre back into the nation.
Few of them could have visited Southampton's Nuffield Theatre which artistic director David Gilmore was forming into a major home of new plays, to see this comedy of their young days in 1927. If it didn't recall their own lives in an ancient family pile turned public school, it very likely brought back the 'pluck and sneak' novels of schoolgirl life as led by the privileged few - those for whom schooldays offered an idealised world of order and heroine-idealisation, a fantasy paid for by termly parental cheque and yet to be tested against awkward reality. Though parents couldn't all pay, all teenagers could dream.
If Mrs Thatcher was grammar school educated, the stories Daisy follows showed the right sort of girl, full of jolly hockey-sticks and fair play, might find some of her friends among the select few plucked, like Miss Meredith, from elementary school hell. Though it helped if they turned out the right sort, in the end. Which is what Daisy did.
The reason Deegan's play was successful, and bears revival with a new, up to the mark cast, is that her mix of gentle parody and strong adventure obeys the first law for such things: that the imitator matches the original's skill. Her characters are spot-on types, which the cast give the same, well-judged sense of reality that the period's vivid-coloured picture-story figures bore to photographic realism. And her well-constructed plot plants its clues frequently enough to provide narrative drive without cluttering the set pieces.
There are occasional reality checks – head-girl Clare Beaumont wonders if the School really reflects the world outside (specially amusing on Mayday, when the street outside's closed off by anti-capitalist demonstrations) – but the point about Grangewood is that it's an enclosed society accepting and operating its own hierarchy and punishment system. Charlotte Oram-West's Headmistress leads by splendid cut-glass example, and, loyally, all the girls done well.
Miss Gibson: Charlotte Oram-West
Daisy Meredith: Hannah Yelland
Sybil Burlington: Jane Mark
Mother/Mademoiselle: Delma Walsh
Belinda Matheson: Amber Edlin
Clare Beaumont: KatherLondonine Igoe
Alice Fitzpatrick: Emma Stansfield
Trixie Martin: Katherine Heath
Monica Smithers: Anna Francolini
Miss Granville: Gailie Morrison
Mr Scoblowski: Roger Heathcott
Winnie Irving: Louisa McCarthy
Dora Johnson: Maxine Gregory
Mr Thompson: Peter Harlowe
School Pianist: Natasha Green
Matron: Helen Brampton
Rosie: Jenni Maitland
Mr Wright: Jeff Bellamy
Jill Timms: Karen Pinkus
Director: David Gilmore
Designer: Glenn Willoughby
Design recreation: Terry Parsons
Costume recreation: Bushy Westfallen
Lighting: Brian Harris
2002-05-02 07:54:24