HUMBLE BOY. To 1 May.

Manchester

HUMBLE BOY
by Charlotte Jones

Library Theatre To 1 May 2004
Mon-Thu 7.30pm Fri-Sat 8-pm Mat Wed & Sat 3pm
Audio-described 29 April, 1 May 3pm
BSL Signed 21 April 7.30pm
Pre-show talk 17 April 3pm, 22 April
Runs 2hr 35min One interval

TICKETS: 0161 236 7110
www.librarytheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 5 April

Decent revival of a highly-rated play.So history gets repeated: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce? Here's Hamlet recurring as a comedy, the most famous tragedy of divided humanity set in an idealised Cotswold garden. Though, look beyond Judith Croft's resplendent floral setting and there's a void suggesting the anti-matter Black Holes which absorb unhappy young Felix Humble.

In this idyll where humanity's the Eden serpent, the ghostly presence of Felix's dead father (a phlegmatic Colin Proktor) is the only character bothering about the garden's depleted hive. Along with Black Holes and sour relationships, the loss of pollinating creatures swings the question of being or not towards the negative.

Though Charlotte Jones' play began life at the National's Cottesloe Theatre, it found its natural home in West End transfer (and subsequent tour). It's that now rarish breed, the well-constructed, wittily and intelligently written middle-brow play - expecting, for full appreciation, a patience with dramatic structure and at least some cultural background.

Patience' means only that the rewards increase as earlier strands are developed. Humble Boy's skilfully written to entertain along the way with realistic characters who move further than social barriers allow in life. Like Felix's sophisticated lady mother, who despite a cosmetic nose job can't smell the flowers, coach company boss George who's wooing her and whose vehicles offer a sky's-the-limit service, and distrait Mercy, nervously aware she's unwanted, a female Polonius lacking status though at one point stirring confusion into the plot unawares.

Humble Boy is clever rather than profound but giving a feel of profundity's part of the art in this type of play. Most interesting is former girl-friend Rosie (Jessica Lloyd aptly intriguing and composed), an Ophelia who's survived and gone beyond the young man who deserted her.

Roger Haines' solid revival offers decent performances, without overcoming doubts about the play's ultimate dimensions. Anna Nicholas can sound artificial as Flora, in an actressy rather than character way, while Ian Midlane impersonates his stammering Hamlet, self-confessedly fat if not scant of breath, without linking the manner to inner-fury as in the National's premiere. But we can't all be Simon Russell Beale.

Felix: Ian Midlane
Mercy: Helen Blatch
Flora: Anna Nicholas
Jim: Colin Prokter
George: Stephen MacKenna
Rosie: Jessica Lloyd:

Director: Roger Haines
Designer: Judith Croft
Lighting: Nick Richings
Sound: Paul Gregory
Composer: Richard Taylor
Fight director: Renny Krupinski
Assistant director: Matt Bloxham

2004-04-10 11:37:26