HAY FEVER. To 11 June.
York
HAY FEVER
by Noel Coward
Theatre Royal To 11 June 2005
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed 2pm & Sat 2.30pm
Audio-described 2 June, 4 June 2.30pm
BSL Signed 2 June
Talkback 2 June
Captioned 4 June 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
TICKETS: 01904 623568
www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 1 June
A solid revival, enhanced by the portrait of a young woman between two worlds.Noel Coward may have promoted the myth of the playwright tossing off a sparkling script before breakfast. But he did write this perfect piece of theatrical clockwork in a weekend All a theatre company needs do is wind it up and not mess with the mechanism. Yet productions have been wrecked by directorial, design or histrionic spanners in the work.
At first, York seems the latest perpetrator, with an over-assertive staircase rising 2 storeys and lined with piles of books in the bohemian Bliss family's Cookham residence. Yet novelist father David works in his room; his wife Judith is an actress, their children more arty than literary. Who reads all these books?
There's a fair amount of choreographed movement as the production begins, to the first piece of 1940s music punctuating this 1920s play. Fortunately, once characters are positioned (no curtain, the stage jutting into the front stalls) Damian Cruden's production settles enjoyably down.
Especially striking is Danielle King's young Sorel. She, and Jack Sandle as her brother, retain a level-headed element, much imperilled in this self-absorbed household (laughable as their 4 house-guests often are, who wouldn't sympathise with them in situ?). They're noticeably siblings in their hair-stroking, arm-holding familiarity. It's Sorel who, early on, complains about the family's strange behaviour. King makes clear this has been a source of embarrassment and upset for her, with malcontent moments of sullenness or frustration.
Yet she shares the temperament that sets the household's ways, beautifully-timed phrasing soon seeing off uppity guest Myra. At first her short, straight-cut hair and plain white clothes contrast her mother Judith's high-coloured, filmy, flowery dress, topped by a hat that seems to have ambitions to become a pair of wings and take its wearer's feet right off the earth. Kate Brown and York fave David Leonard are young to have adult children, Brown's Bliss very young to have retired, while the light voice hardly suggests the star of her standby Love's Whirlwind' or suggests comparison with the famous Ellen Terry portrait hanging full-length above the door. But it remains an overall good performance in a well-considered revival.
Sorel Bliss: Danielle King
Simon Bliss: Jack Sandle
Clara: Gilly Tompkins
Judith Bliss: Kate Brown
David Bliss: David Leonard
Sandy Tyrell: Alex Kerr
Richard Greatham: Mark Payton
Jackie Coryton: Amy Humphreys
Myra Arundel: Julie Teal
Director: Damian Cruden
Designer: Nigel Hook
Lighting: Malcolm Rippeth
Music advisor: Richard Taylor
Voice coach: Susan Stern
2005-06-02 11:02:10