OUTSIDE EDGE. To 1 June.
Basingstoke
OUTSIDE EDGE
by Richard Harris
Haymarket Theatre To 1 June 2002
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat 18, 30 May, 1 June 3pm
Runs 2hr 20min One interval
TICKETS 01256 465566
Review Timothy Ramsden 13 May
Basingstoke's hard-working revival shows how drama, and society, have changed over recent decades.It was just a jubilee ago -director Christopher Ettridge has predated Richard Harris's 1979 comedy by two years to give the patriotic bunting around the local cricket pavilion a royal significance. Otherwise, it's leisure as usual for captain Roger, his famous cricket-teas making wife Miriam and the local team. It's worth giving the old script another innings, reminding that this middle-class territory wasn't exclusively Alan Ayckbourn's.
Maybe there's something of Harris's thriller-writer side in Bob's escapades, as we find it's not some local floosy but a demanding ex-wife that's leading him to slip away from the field. Other things that just aren't cricket include the underdeveloped disco dancer Sharon. Hannah Cresswell dithers – or dibbles – effectively, nervous in this suburban company, wanting only to get to the toilet. Her lap-dancing daughters of 2002 wouldn't put themselves through such nervous agonies.
She's there as trophy girl for Alex, the solicitor who looks down on his team-mates. Edward Clarke handles well the repeated occasion when his character's pride takes a literal fall.
Granville Saxton's undeniably funny cad, emblazered and hair-slicked, is more fifties than late seventies. Indeed, and as always, he's Granville Saxton. For most actors, remembering lines is the basic task; for Saxton it must be choreographing the balletic eyebrows and orchestrating an expressive symphony of guttural sounds.
Harris provides an intriguing relationship between little Kev, the household cook, and big Maggie, his brick-laying, ever-loving wife. She's from Liverpool, and presumably working-class, so immune to the angsts afflicting the others' lives. Marianna Reidman catches this blessed happiness but needs to be less entirely casual in her reactions to the world around.
Joanna Hole captures the subdued team captain's wife with a spirit eventually rising to boiling point, but her husband comes over with a tetchy simplicity, caught between domestic tyranny and contemptible idiocy, which defuses the plot explosion over his doings in Dorking.
Amusing enough, and helped by Elroy Ashmore's detailed set, which somehow encapsulates the dull routine and complex organisation behind this English pastime. But it needs the cohesion often built during a play's run to hit the script for six.
Miriam Dervish: Joanna Hole
Roger Dervish: Stuart Nurse
Bob Wiley: Peter Glancy
Ginnie Wiley: Kate Dove
Dennis Broadley: Granville Saxton
Maggie Costello: Marianna Reidman
Kevin Costello: Adrian Dixon
Alex Goldhawk-Smyth: Edward Clarke
Sharon Dibley: Hannah Cresswell
Director: Christopher Ettridge
Designer: Elroy Ashmore
Lighting: Simon Hutchings
Sound: John Greet
2002-05-14 11:34:02