MAMMALS. To 14 May

London

MAMMALS
by Amelia Bullmore

Bush Theatre To 14 May 2005
Mon-Sat 8pm
Runs 1hr 50min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7610 4224
www.bushtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 21 April

Good Bush fare in a top-notch production.This production provokes a question probably not intended in Amelia Bullmore's neat if simplistic title. Do non-human species contain some members who live tidily and those who live in squalor? Are there tidy lions and tigers and untidy ones; would some giraffes not want to be seen dead living in conditions other giraffes think normal?

In this human household dad's arrival home lead to the floor being cleared and the sink emptied of dirty dishes. In other respects, Kev returns to mess up the life of assiduous housewife and mother Jane plus their 2 young daughters. We're just mammals at the mercy of urges, is his self-interested analysis as secretion-borne desires drop him in love with a business colleague, while still loving his wife. Every adult relationship, friendship, love and marriage, comes in for a bruising as glib reassurances clash against undermined self-respect.

And, yes, it has an impact on the children, particularly Jess, whose childhood innocence is starting to be tinged with sexual curiosity and physical itches. Jane sees her world threatened while her daughters demand attention with questions, at once urgent and detached, about life and death. This trio has the keenest writing. Helena Lymbury and Jane Hazlegrove catch 2 stages of childhood with wicked comic precision. Their ability to be intense about 6 different things in at least 3 different ways makes for some hilariously pertinent moments. Niamh Cusack's Jane is an outstanding creation, love and frustration expressed with both lightness and depth.

Bullmore also writes a delightfully stylish part for the appallingly stylish Lorna (What man alive wouldn't want to be toyed with by Lorna? husband Phil rhetorically asks his friend Kev). Her high-fashion sefishness, caught in Nancy Carroll's no-nonsense briskness, goes with unfulfilled longing and evident inability to be a conscientious mother like Jane.

The men are more schematic, expressing ideas about feelings rather than exploring the experiences deeply, which is where Bullmore's title appears more thesis than proved on evidence. Yet both actors invest their roles with reality in a production by Anna Mackmin that searches out every detail of relationships.

Jane: Niamh Cusack
Betty: Helena Lymbery
Jess: Jane Hazlegrove
Kev: Daniel Ryan
Phil: Mark Bonnar
Lorna: Nancy Carroll

Director: Anna Mackmin
Designer: Paul Wills
Lighting: Howard Harrison
Sound: Mike Walker
Assistant director: Alex Ferguson

2005-04-22 08:20:41