FLYING UNDER BRIDGES. To 23 April.

Watford

FLYING UNDER BRIDES
by Sarah Daniels from the novel by Sandi Toksvig

Palace Theatre To 23 April 2005
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed 2.30pm & Sat 3pm
Audio-described 23 April 2.30pm
Stagetext 22 April
Runs 2hr 10min One interval

TICKETS: 01923 225671
www.watfordtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 April

Low-flying, low-achieving sitcom.This execrable drama, in which a novel and a play add up to less than a so-so sitcom, is only saved from absolute extinction by the hard work of a fine cast and a few decent lines hit upon by luck, chance or the law of averages. Its construction clunks along the runway, much of the first act being feebly comic conversations establishing why a paragon of unselfish benevolence is facing trial for murder.

Characters come in two types: liberal, put-upon and pleasant or reactionary, religious and grotesque. These are packages; don't look for subtlety. Several actors get to play one of each. Julie Legrand's both a closet lesbian afraid for her TV career and the family matriarch declining into death and feeble humour. Legrand's Inge fights off the mawkishness that comes when comedy switches gear to serious concern. Her performance as old Lillian is pure damage limitation.

Similarly, Patricia Gannon plays fresh-faced victim Shirley, trapped out of university and into religion by a smart and smarmy solicitor, and loud, brash Aussie Pe Pe (talking of clumped-up stereotypes), skilfully applying energetic naivety and shiny superficiality respectively.

Perhaps because the men are ciphers they come off better. Anthony Kernan's William is a smartly-dressed, reasonable-sounding hypocrite who turns his mother out of the house, his smile stretching from ear to eternities of blandness and apparently able to swivel vertically through at least 45 degrees.

Neil McCaul does a fine turn as a repeatedly disillusioned Psychiatrist, the dourest Scots doc since Hobson's Choice. In his other role he's subjected to that sure sign of dying comic inspiration, the Shirley Bassey drag number. There are so many ways of introducing a religious hypocrite, it's amazing Bridges manages to find one that's unconvincing. Daniel Pirrie launches manfully into his sinister religious cliché of a character.

Julia Hills, a truly fine actor, has the good-hearted put-upon central role, blandly dressed and always smiling. She survives, and by the end triumphs, able to do so in the space created when the fissured walls of Liz Cooke's living-room swivel round for the final time, leaving her the floor.

Eve Marshall: Julia Hills
Psychiatrist/Adam Marshall: Neil McCaul
Lillian Cameron/Inge Holbrook: Julie Legrand
Pe Pe Cameron/Shirley Marshall: Patricia Gannon
William Cameron/Tom Marshall: Anthony Kernan
John Clarke: Daniel Pirrie

Director: Joyce Branagh
Designer: Liz Cooke
Lighting: John Harris
Assistant director: Katy Silverton

2005-04-14 11:32:01