HE'S MUCH TO BLAME To 26 September.

Basingstoke.

HE’S MUCH TO BLAME
by Thomas Holcroft.

Haymarket Theatre To 26 September 2009.
7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2pm.
BSL Signed 24 Sept 7.30pm.
Runs 2hr 40min One interval.

TICKETS: 01256 844244.
www.anvilarts.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 18 September at Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds.

Lively venture into English theatre’s neglected back catalogue.
Actually, he’s much to praise. Since Bury St Edmunds’ 1819 Theatre Royal reopened a couple of years ago artistic director Colin Blumenau has built a programme of home-made productions and invited a range of companies to the theatre and surrounding venues.

At the core of the home-produced work is the Theatre Royal’s identity as a Georgian playhouse, with round-the-year playreadings from the period, under the umbrella title ‘Restoring the Repertoire’.

Each September there’s a full production, this year a 1798 comedy, derived distantly from Goethe, by Thomas Holcroft, playwright, novelist and political activist (a dangerous Leftie of French Revolutionary times, he published fellow East Anglian Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man) with local connections – he worked for a time at Newmarket - who four years later wrote A Tale of Mystery, identified as the first English melodrama.

This, however, is a comedy taking an askance look at English society, though there’s not much that’s radically striking nowadays. Yet aristocrat Lord Vibrate is presumably named as he veers between opinions; Paul Greenwood no sooner announces a decision with lordly certainty before his voice lightens into questioning indecision.

Mainly it’s a plot of misplaced loves, which sees the bereft Maria turning-up in male disguise. This is fine till she’s examined by Tim Frances’s voluble, Germanic medic. His many opening comments veer audience-wards, showing how valuable a resource the restored Theatre Royal is – in terms of performance practice, a Georgian version of Shakespeare’s Globe.

There’s a sense of connection with the open-air Elizabethan theatre as the concave doors either side the front stage open to bring characters into a space that’s as much an extension of the auditorium as linked to the scenic stage behind. Designer Libby Watson’s painted front curtain with its view of Nash’s London rises to reveal a wall covered in Georgian caricatures. This opens out to a deeper scenic area, the only area that’s clearly separate from the audience’s world.

The production is well-acted, making comic points with a solid firmness doubtless in keeping with the period. Let’s hope much of this spirit translates to its week visiting Basingstoke.

Thompson: John Cormack.
Jenkins: Emma Connell.
Dr Gosterman: Tim Frances.
Lucy: Katie Bonna.
Maria: Amy Humphreys.
Delaval: Nick Underwood.
Williams: Steve Giles.
Lord Vibrate: Paul Greenwood.
Lady Vibrate: Maggie O’Brien.
Lady Jane: Joannah Tincey.
Sir George Versatile: Paul Chesterton.

Director: Colin Blumenau.
Designer: Libby Watson.
Lighting: Matthew Eagland.
Assistant lighting: Steve Mulholland.

2009-09-24 01:27:32