FOR SERVICES RENDERED. To 14 April.

Newbury

FOR SERVICES RENDERED
by W Somerset Maughan

Watermill Theatre To 14 April 2007
Runs 2 hours 15 minutes One Interval
Review Mark Courtice: 13 April 2007

War's a bad thing.
At Leonard Ardsley's house a representative selection of those damaged by the First World War tend to gather. Son Sydney has been blinded and now can only play games and do tatting. Daughter Eva, now expected to look after him, has lost the man she loved. Neighbour and thoroughly good chap Collie Stratton, thrown out of the peacetime Navy, is struggling to run a depression-struck business with only the skills of a destroyer captain. Common son-in-law Howard Bartlett cannot forget the glory days of seduction and excitement - now he gets up early just to look after his animals.

Almost without exception they are a pretty crummy lot. Pompous Ardsley (John Nettleton in best blustering form) can't tell the difference between the law and justice, or when those surrounding him are falling apart. Daughter Lois is a hard-faced, selfish piece of work, and even those one feels faintly sorry for are snobbish and vain.

This all feels very out of place and time. In 1932, the conclusion that the rhetoric of heroism and war is bunk must have been a big surprise, but now one wonders why the Watermill would bother. This is not a controversial conclusion, the solid middle classes are no longer so solid, and the world that Maugham correctly divined as disappearing has disappeared. The power of the piece has been blunted; nowadays laughs come from cosy nostalgia, the very feeling that Maugham loathed.

The performances feel as old-fashioned as everything else. Amongst a good deal of genuine 1930's-style big gestures and loud voices, Abigail McKern is impressive in two central scenes, giving up everything including dignity for the chance of love and a way out of the stultifying world of her parents' house, and going mad with grief and rage when that chance is lost forever.

A big cast that would have looked fine on a 1930's West End stage is uncomfortably crowded in the tiny Watermill, a problem which some cumbersome blocking doesn't help answer. The design combines inside and out cleverly, with shadowy, mildewed walls under skeletal branches spare and effective.

Leonard Ardsley: John Nettleton
Charlotte Ardsley: Polly Adams
Sydney Ardsley: Richard Clothier
Eva: Abigail McKern
Lois: Olivia Llewellyn
Ethel Bartlett: Issy van Randwyck
Howard Bartlett: Simon Slater
Collie Stratton: Tom Beard
Wilfred Cedar: David Yelland
Gwen Cedar: Lucy Fleming
Dr Prentice: Christopher Good
Gertrude: Yvonne Riley

Director: Edward Hall
Designer: Francis O'Connor
Lighting: Oliver Fenwick
Music: Simon Slater

2007-04-16 01:58:57