HARVEY. To 7 January.

Manchester

HARVEY
by Mary Chase

Royal Exchange Theatre To 7 January 2006
Mon-Fri 7.40pm Sat 8pm Mat Wed 2.30pm Sat 4pm
Runs 2hr 35min One interval

TICKETS: 0161 833 9833
www.royalexchange.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 December

Good-natured good fun expertly delivered.
I can only think of 3 plays the Royal Exchange has produced twice during its 30 years in its present theatre. Twelfth Night, reasonably enough. And Harold Brighouse’sZack earned a place in the opening season as a local writer’s comedy, then a revival recalling that first year. But Harvey? A mild-mannered 40s American comedy by an otherwise unknown author, made famous mainly by James Stewart in a lopingly-appropriate performance as affluent drunk Elwood P Dowd, best friends with everyone but especially an imaginary 6 foot-plus white rabbit called Harvey.

Dowd’s a non-seasonal feelgood variation of Stewart’s benevolent manner in It’s A Wonderful Life, making Harvey apt as the kind of Christmastime comedy the Exchange often goes for. The play gives Dowd space to take on the medical and legal establishments, plus the venality within his own family, and win. It’s the medics’ own self-importance (which includes self-protection when they believe they’ve made a wrong diagnosis) that keeps them from realising Elwood’s delusion sooner. And the voice of truth, preventing an unhappy end, comes from that perennial source of knowledge, a cab-driver (a splendidly affable Joe Speare).

This is the best Exchange Christmas show for some years. Ben Keaton’s Elwood establishes himself as a drinker whose loose manner of movement, including the few dance steps with which he repeatedly celebrates life, shows someone used to controlling his behaviour without completely hiding his intake; a man who, as he says, has reality where he wants it. It’s those ruled by reality who rush and worry, bothering about advancement and reputation.

No doubt Chase takes the easy route, giving Elwood independent means of living, with minimal comment on this, his other happy state. But Keaton’s soft-voiced, smilingly considerate manner is winning, as is his courtesy to Harvey and to Alisa Arnah’s young nurse, delightful-looking enough to make any medical fee worthwhile, or as Chase pointedly has Elwood saying, making him almost willing to live life over again. That’s a remark showing sadness behind the laughter. Both elements are caught in this latest Exchange example of director Greg Hersov’s expertise with the American repertoire.

Myrtle Mae Simmons: Amy Phillips
Veta Louise Simmons: Polly Hemingway
Elwood P Dowd: Ben Keaton
Mrs Ethel Chauvenet/Betty Chumley: Jean Challis
Nurse Ruth Kelly: Alisa Arnah
Duane Wilson: Andrew Westfield
Cr Lyman Sanderson: Milo Twomey
Dr William R Chumley: James Smith
Judge Omar Gaffney: Vincent Marzello
E J Rollins: Joe Speare

Director: Greg Hersov
Designer: Di Seymour
Lighting: David Holmes
Sound: Steve Brown
Dialect coach: Lise Olson

2005-12-27 08:57:33