LOVE & MARRIAGE. To 26 April.

Tour

LOVE & MARRIAGE
by Donald Churchill

Theatre Royal Bath Productions tour to 26 April 2003
Runs 2hr 5min One interval

TICKETS (Edinburgh): 0131 529 6000
Review Timothy Ramsden 19 February at King's Theatre Edinburgh (to 22 February 7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm)

An elegant theatrical contrivance.This play has an audience, and it's not only made up of ageing Adam Faith groupies. Anyone who wishes to be diverted by the midlife dilemmas of the south London suburbs, the land of well-kept conservatories, where the agonising pinches of financial necessity can be momentarily assuaged by stoking up the credit card commitments, will find their expectations met.

Here is the ennui of Anouilh without the Frenchman's alleged profundities, served with piquant humour and the odd 'bollocks' for modernity's sake; the air of sophistication without having much to be sophisticated about: a neat, time-proved cheat of the commercial theatre.

Yet Churchill doesn't cheat. He strikes, in kid gloves, at a true enough point for tribe bourgeoisie. It's not the adultery that does for your marriage: it's the hurt sense of truth. Marriages can survive infidelity so long as there's a core of trust that goes beneath the sexual doings.

More on the plot would be unfair. But the first act ends in a revelation that'd shock only someone brought up in the most refined of unworldly convents. It's only post-interval that theme and relations really start moving; the play consists too much of conversations around events. The few striking happenings tend only to provoke more discussion.

Adam Faith does an honest job as the family friend, compulsive philanderer Bill. He turns a neat comic phrase in his raddled, gravelly manner, though you sense it's not the character that snatches so many senses in such similar rhythms.

Liz Izen's Ruth is filled with humanity. Good intentions and bright respectability resound in every sentence in a finely-detailed performance.

Stephen Boxer's Tony moves beyond the realism of rheumatism and athlete's foot, beyond the joke-laden disappointment with life, to moments of inward despair: as the voice rises it fades, unable to face the expression of despair; the face freezes in shocked torment.

Churchill has written a langurously elegant play; besides his star, he's blessed with two first-rate performances, a suitably elegant setting and crisp direction.

Tony: Stephen Boxer
Ruth: Liz Izen
Bill: Adam Faith
Anne: Lynn Robertson Hay

Director: Mark Clements
Designer: Philip Whitcomb
Lighting: Chris Ellis
Sound: Stage Sound Services

2003-02-21 16:12:24