HOCK AND SODA WATER by John Mortimer. Minerva Theatre to 8 December.
Chichester
HOCK AND SODA WATER
by John Mortimer
Minerva Theatre, Chichester To 8 December 2001
Runs 1hr 55min One interval
TICKETS 01243 781312
Review Timothy Ramsden 28 November
Mortimer muses entertainingly on the counter-attractions of security and adventure.Memory works wonders for John Mortimer – the autobiographical A Voyage Round My Father is his best play till now and this new one, in which an old man revisits his younger selves, may well come to sit alongside it.
The title refers to Byron's prescription for blotting out thoughts of the future. These are not in the mind of young Henry Pottinger. Sam Harding's zestful boyhood Henry, keen for life's adventures, is a remarkable performance by a young actor. But the boyish freshness is ironic; as he grows Henry will always opt for safety, rising to manage the local Coldsands-on-Sea Sentinel rather than spread his wings – or indeed, grow any to spread – in adult life.
The meeting of innocence and experience is matched in the performers. Young Harry's simple joy in life is summed up in Harding's directness. Harry sixty years on is aware of his relation to the lad he once was, a complexity expressed through the technical authority of Richard Johnson's lithe figure.
Between the two comes Alan Cox as the young adult Harry. Christopher Morahan's production captures moving moments in the relation between Johnson and his two forebears. There's the first moment Cox has to borrow Johnson's spectacles for reading. And the brief moment when Cox realises he must give up the ghost to Johnson, who will take his place at the table. It's the moment everyone comes to recognise in some form: when we can no longer think of ourselves as young any more.
It's in the relationship between these selves that Hock and Sodas Water proves most palatable. Around it is some fairly standard Mortimer material, the vicar shorn of his belief and suffering through his sinuses or the over-helpful girlfriend dishwashing her way into her prospective family's favour. Josephine Butler gives this character a fine edge of danger. If it's harder to believe in Gemma Page's free spirit of an international career journalist, the character is probably the least convincingly written.
Generally, it's another success for the Minerva, where a cold seaside town of graveyards and dead marriages evokes lost opportunity with a peculiarly English melancholy.
Harry: Richard Johnson
A Boy: Sam Harding
Dawn Pottinger: Dinah Stabb
The Rev. Henry Pottinger: Osmund Bullock
Mr Rewcastle/Sam Brackett: Peter Aubrey
Receptionist: Natasha Green
Felicity Rewcastle: Josephine Butler
Air Raid Warden: Ewan Watson
Henry: Alan Cox
Mavis Whitney: Gemma Page
Director: Christopher Morahan
Designer: Deidre Clancy
Lighting: Wayne Dowdeswell
Sound: Tom Lishman
Choreographer: Terry John Bates
2001-11-30 00:55:35