ENJOY. To 16 May.
London.
ENJOY
by Alan Bennett.
Gielgud Theatre To 16 May 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm.
Runs 2hr 30min One interval.
TICKETS: 0844 482 5130.
Review: Carole Woddis 23 February.
Sad yet exuberant, with plenty of fun.
Amazing what time can do. When Alan Bennett’s Enjoy first opened in 1980 it suffered a dismally short run, misunderstood by critics and audiences alike. Seeing it now in Christopher Luscombe’s spry revival, originally part of last summer’s annual Peter Hall Bath residency, you realise why it was a play ahead of its time. It seems initially like another jolly comedy about the northern working-class. But it darkens and is pierced by a post-Orton sense of anarchic satire.
At its heart, apart from casting a sceptical eye over marriage, the myth of `happy families’ and modernisation, Bennett is fiercely fixing his colours to the `gay’ mast. Maybe West End theatre wasn’t quite ready in 1980 for transvestism, domestic violence and paternal abuse.
If modern audiences are now more at ease with such aberrations, there’s no doubt it’s the fun and frolic they come to `enjoy’. Bennett provides plenty. And they love him, as one of their own.
It’s classic comic entertainment. There is a sublime Donald McGill moment, for example, when David Troughton’s grumpy, disabled Dad appears dead, only for his male member to be indicating otherwise. Alison Steadman’s gloriously dippy Mam and Carol Macready’s neighbour, examining this phenomenon, milk the scene for all it’s worth, with hilarious results.
Sometimes though you don’t quite know whether to laugh or cry. Mam and Dad, living in a working-class back-to-back, are on the point of being demolished and transferred to a modern maisonette. Cue the entrance of an observer from the council (their son, in travesti) making a survey to discover perfect specimens of their way of life to keep for posterity. In other words, put them in a museum.
Enjoy becomes increasingly surreal, with Bennett making prescient points about the power of the observer to change human beings’ behaviour. Like Orton, too, one of the main pleasures is to see Bennett juggling the mundane (Mam dusting) with the outrageous (talk of toilets and sexual relations).
Steadman is a joy, a benign, slightly oversized sparrow, on the brink of memory loss - signalling a play that ends in surprising pathos.
Wilfred Craven: David Troughton.
Connie Craven: Alison Steadman.
Ms Craig: Richard Glaves.
Linda Craven: Josie Walker.
Heritage: Mark Killeen.
Anthony: Peter McGovern.
Gregory: Julian Pindar.
Mrs Clegg: Carol Macready.
Adrian: John Gould.
Sid: Chris McCalphy.
Harman: Jake Ferretti.
Charles: James Parkes.
Rowland: David Bell.
Director: Christopher Luscombe.
Designer: Janet Bird.
Lighting: Paul Pyant.
Sound: Jason Barnes.
Musical Director: Michael Haslam.
Choreographer: Jenny Arnold.
Fight director: Malcolm Ranson.
Dialect coach: Martin McKellan.
Assistant director: Sarah Norman.
This production was first performed at Theatre Royal, Bath
on August 18, 2008.
2009-02-26 17:00:02