HOW THE OTHER HALF LOVES. To 12 May.
Oldham
HOW THE OTHER HALF LOVES
by Alan Ayckbourn
Coliseum Theatre To 12 May 2007
Runs 2hr 40min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 11 May
Decent revival of indecent goings-on.
This 1969 comedy of middle-class adultery has the charm of a fine writer’s early work and comes up well-enough in Oldham’s revival. Coincidently, it provides a chance for comparison with Ayckbourn’s slightly-later Absurd Person Singular, opening the same night in Bolton.
The boss’s wife is having a fling with one of her husband’s executives. There’s little chance absent-minded Frank would ever work out Fiona’s infidelity; the wonder is his business keeps going at all. But, for all her good causes and chaotic domestic manner, Bob’s wife Theresa puts two and two together and comes up with the right pairing.
Rob Swain’s production seems to be going for the truth in the situation rather than any comic pointing, especially in Neil Salvage’s hesitant Frank, trustingly conventional, with a mind that rarely gets from the start of a sentence to the end without diverting, and Nicola Bolton’s fresh if sometimes over-deliberate Nicola. These two seem set to provide the main interest, believable and interesting, if in an only mildly funny way.
That’s until the third couple arrive, whom the lovers have used as unwitting alibis: the inoffensive Featherstones, William and Mary. James Nickerson gives the naïve, ever-willing William the mobile features of a ferret sniffing its way to acceptance. As his mousy-wife Mary, Alison Burrows provides a splendid comic performance, standing bent, like frozen anxiety caught in someone’s headlights, or using both hands to steady a glass of the sherry she so hates.
It’s when this pair are around the evening takes flight. William’s paternally patronising taps on his wife’s wrists as he repeatedly tells her how to behave encapsulate an entire relationship, while Burrows’ avoidance of overt comedy when Mary gains the moral advantage and accepts her husband’s spluttering attempt at an apology, uses the moment to enrich her character.
Dawn Allsopp’s two-in-one setting uses browns and creams to create different levels of both affluence and taste for the living-rooms where the action simultaneously occurs. The comic highlights, contrasting dinner-parties held on successive nights but played simultaneously, and the jealous rage of an irate husband, never fail.
Theresa: Nicola Bolton
Mary: Alison Burrows
Bob: Paul David-Gough
Fiona: Carol Holt
William: James Nickerson
Frank: Neil Salvage
Director: Rob Swain
Designer: Dawn Allsopp
Lighting: Thomas Weir
Sound: Lorna Munden
Fight director: Kate Waters
2007-05-15 10:14:33