Round and Round the Garden: Ayckbourn: Haymarket Basingstoke to 25th June 20

Basingstoke

ROUND AND ROUND THE GARDEN
by Alan Ayckbourn

Haymarket Theatre To 25 June 2004 in rep with Living Together
MonSat 7.45 pm Mat 24 June 3:00pm
Runs 1hr 55min One Interval

TICKETS: 01256 465566
www.haymarket.org.uk
Review: Mark Courtice 14 June 2004

The best of the Basingstoke week ends.This is much the best of the plays that Basingstoke has produced in its season of three week-end based plays. Opening with a dire Hay Fever, and followed by a lack-lustre Living Together, this Round and Round the Garden gets it much righter. Here is the energy and life that was missing from the others.

It is the best written play, with real interest in the characters, a real dilemma to think about at the centre of the action, and real fun in the telling of it.

It is also better done. What seems like tentative caricature in Living Together becomes closer to thought through character; the mature, developed work of Alan Blyton's Reg and Caron Pascoe's Ruth mean that their scenes together are the real thing, interestingly characterful, witty and, at the right time, moving. There is much to enjoy in Alison McKenna's Sarah, who gets the tone just right as a pastel clad fury.

The production does suffer from some weaknesses of the others. Elroy Ashmore's left over set (the other side of which first made its appearance in Hay Fever) does the job, mainly because it makes space for Kate Dove's production to take place downstage centre. Detail and finish however leave a lot to be desired. Dove sensibly lets the actors get on with it.

Reg: Alan Blyton
Sarah: Alison McKenna
Ruth: Caron Pascoe
Norman: Peter Hamilton Dyer
Annie: Catrin Aaron
Tom: Anthony Washington

Director: Kate Dove
Designer: Elroy Ashmore
Lighting: Simon Hutchings

2004-06-24 21:07:10