GOING POTTY. To 1 April.

London

GOING POTTY
by Kate Wyvill

New End Theatre To 1 April 2007
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat & Sun 3.30pm
Runs 2hr One interval

TICKETS: 0870 033 2733
www.newendtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 11 March

Lives that are cabined, cribbed, confined raise some laughs.
This newish play (it’s done duty on the Edinburgh Fringe and been seen in the West Midlands) sets itself a tough task: to keep comic invention spinning during extensive outer scenes confined to a conversation through a wardrobe-door.

We’re in the middle-England of rising executives and fitted furniture, young children and regular routine. Where there’s money to buy 75 shirts but no time to iron them. And where her walk-in wardrobe becomes a kind of convenience-womb for Kate Wyvill’s Emma amid life’s diurnal stress.

She's shut herself in, with several mod cons ready-installed, locking-out husband Robert, focal point of all her problems. He can see nothing but the immediate need to deal with young children and catch his commuter train. How far can a play sustain itself with one character near-permanently shut up? Devices with keys, stratagems with ‘phones and messages, not to mention the eponymous receptacle, all come in handy.

But there’s still sometimes a sense of constriction. And the dialogue includes some unhelpful repetitions, while Denise Gilfoyle’s production needs to tighten the pace, and sort out the balance between realism and comic style. Quite often realistic detail slows down the comedy rather than being caught up stylistically within it.

And there’s something unconvincing about the sight of this wardrobe filling the stage, giving the confined Emma far more space than Robert, who’s stuck at the stage’s edge. It focuses properly on Emma, but lacks the sense of confinement.

Still, the author and Simon Greenway give well-shaped performances, showing the strains that silently creep in with standard-format success. And Sally, the single female executive, living (somewhat stereotypically) with her cat back home, is well-used by Wyvill (as author and actor) to show grass that’s not so green on the other side of the marital/career-girl fence.

It’s in the central section, at Robert’s Office, that much of the better comedy comes. Work details are a bit too muzzy; if Robert’s big project-opportunity were more defined, its importance to him would matter more to us. Such definition would help shift what’s amusing towards the hilarious in this so-recognisable midlife crisis comedy.

Emma/Sally: Kate Wyvill
Robert: Simon Greenway
Voices: Boss: Simon Drew
Tom: Harrison Wyvill
Children: Toby, Harrison, Gabriel Wyvill

Director: Denise Gilfoyle
Lighting: Nick Marston

2007-03-16 01:01:55