RELATIVELY SPEAKING. To 20 March.

Northampton

RELATIVELY SPEAKING
by Alan Ayckbourn

Royal Theatre To 20 March 2004
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat 4,13,18 March 2.30pm
Audio-decsribed 9 March
BSL Signed 16 March
Runs 2hr 15min One interval

TICKETS: 01604 624811
www.royalandderngate.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 March

Splendid revival, seriously funny.Good Ayckbourn productions show real people (plus, recently, a selection of Androids). Bad and mediocre ones present a gallery of mannerisms and arch-overemphases. By this criterion, Simon Godwin's revival of Ayckbourn's early break-through comedy is very good indeed.

By any standards, it's exceptional. A period-piece in fashion detail and more importantly catching an English middle-class mentality, Relatively Speaking emerges as comically fresh, a near-masterpiece in its own right. It predates Ayckbourn's famous stage-tricks two rooms simultaneously on stage in How The Other Half Loves, interlocking action in the Norman Conquests etc. But its perfect intricacy of plotting, each of the four scenes presenting a different stage of adulteries real or imagined, is apparent in Godwin's expertly-cast production.

Ayckbourn credibly sustains extended cross-purpose dialogue (Greg thinks he's asking to marry the daughter of a man who's actually her lover; the older man thinks the younger wants to marry his wife). Real and imaginary intrigues ingeniously intermix, indicating characters' insecurities. And watch how Aykbourn uses a pair of slippers. When first discovered, they're repeatedly referred to, letting audiences work out their imminent significance. Later they re-emerge, pushing us to quick realisation of how they'll be used anew in the plot. Then comes a final reversal of all plot suppositions.

Though Simon Daw's opening set for the young flat-sharers is functional and dull, it opens out for the main action into the apparently well-ordered garden of middle-aged affluence. After clumsy comic business in which Freddie Stevenson converts a bedsheet into some kind of toga-come-nappy, his Greg becomes a fine comic mix of puzzlement and confidence.

If Paul Shelley's philandering Philip occasionally veers towards the overly emphatic and gestural, this is the comic-butt part, with least emotional range, and Shelley generally handles it well.

Both women are outstanding, Kellie Bright bringing genuine desperation and hope to the comic twirls. And Alison Skilbeck's portrait of well-brought up English gentility of the period, politeness eternally to the fore, is magnificently judged. Here's a woman who foreshadows two female types in Ayckbourn's plays: caught in a maze of unaccountable events, yet bringing a shrewd judgment to bear.

Greg: Freddie Stevenson
Ginny: Kellie Bright
Philip: Paul Shelley
Sheila: Alison Skilbeck

Director: Simon Godwin
Designer: Simon Daw
Lighting: Paul Dennant
Sound: Gregory Clarke
Assistant director: Mike Hayhurst

2004-03-04 10:54:53