PACK OF LIES. To 31 August.

Southwold

PACK OF LIES
by Hugh Whitemore

Southwold Summer Theatre, St. Edmund's Hall To 31 August 2002
Mon-Sat 8.15pm Mat Sat 5pm
Runs 2hr 25min One interval

TICKETS 01502 724441 (11am-4pm Mon-Fri, 11am-1pm Sat)
01502 722389 (5pm-9.30pm Mon-Fri, 2pm-9.30pm Sat)
Review Timothy Ramsden 15 August

Whitemore's study of betrayal still packs a punch when given a strong revival such as this.Whatever happened to Gilbert Harding? It's a theatrical irony that just as Goodbye Gilbert Harding, a new play about the 1950s British TV celebrity, is about to take to the road I find he's been written out of Whitemore's 1983 play.

The reference to Harding's death helped evoke the period of the early sixties, aptly tying the world of the Jackson family in suburban north-west London to the fifties rather than the common idea of the decade just beginning.

Substitution of Clark Gable's demise, presumably now considered to have more meaning, loses this point. But if it's a betrayal of British identity for American cultural dominance, it's fitting in one sense. The play's packed full of betrayals.

What distinguishes the Jacksons, law-abiding and middle-class as can be, is that they're the amateurs. Stewart, the spook with no first name, who knows more about the KGB chief than he does of his next-door neighbour, is professional. So are Bob and Barbara's best friends, coolly living a cover-life over several years.

It's evident in Michael Hoskinson's mild voice and smiling face that he's the soul of fairness and reason. For his wife, treachery cuts deeper. Her home is her life and she cannot contemplate all is not as clear as a summer sky and as sweet-smelling as the roses that doubtless grow in their garden.

By the side of Paula Stockbridge's Helen - glamorous in figure, face and manner - Maureen Flynn's Barbara is plain and dowdy. It's the glory of Flynn's performance that she's utterly true to this. As she becomes gradually aware of the deceptions played upon her, and the ones she's being called upon to violate her honest nature by playing herself, the increasingly anguished looks afflicting her face are accompanied by telltale signs: the nervous fingers working away, the averted eyes and involuntarily fidgeting right leg

The production may not have the richer resonances of the West End premiere, with Judi Dench, Michael Williams and Barbara Leigh-Hunt, but there's a gain in that Barbara here is absolutely the person you would not notice in the queue - a Dench character, you feel, would soon be the centre of interest.

If Ian Barritt's Stewart still carries some of the overdone boom from his recent Southwold/Aldeburgh Priestley dignitary, his easy manner and posture - erect and formal, yet soon making himself at home on the Jackson's sofa - makes clear the easy confidence of the high-up dealing with these people: apparently offering them choices, while subtly twisting their arms.

Stewart's professional handmaidens are well-contrasted to show the range of personality even a secret service can include. Nia Davies is cheerily sympathetic as the well-intentioned Thelma who still has to be true to the codes of secrecy while Joanna Croll, in her brief appearances, makes clear she's the contemptuous newcomer set for the fast-track. Good work too from Bradley Cole's mild-seeming Peter and Amanda Kernot's daughter, who finds the events which perturb her mother really rather exciting.

Maurice Rubens breaks with his box-sets for this Summer season's previous shows. Rightly so. Apart from the practical problems of showing three sections of a house - hall, kitchen, living-room - on a limited-size stage, this is a home where people's lives are blown apart and it's fitting the gaps in the once-sure realism should show.

But any production stands on its Barbara, and here the part's in sure hands.

Bob Jackson: Michael Hoskinson
Barbaras Jackson: Maureen Flynn
Julie Jackson: Amanda Kernot
Helen Kroger: Paula Stockbridge
Peter Kroger: Bradley Cole
Stewart: Ian Barritt
Thelma: Nia Davies
Sally: Joanna Croll

Director: Anthony Falkingham
Designer: Maurince Rubens
Lighting: Ben Payne

Sponsor: A.K.T. Productions Ltd.

2002-08-18 22:33:43