SUMMER LIGHTNING. To 21 October.
Pitlochry
SUMMER LIGHTNING
by P G Wodehouse
Pitlochry Festival Theatre In rep to 21 October 2006
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 6, 14, 23 Sept, 21 Oct 2pm
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 01796 484626
www.pitlochry.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 26 August
By jove (if without Jeeves), Wodehouse done proud.
P G Wodehouse's beautifully-styled prose about the idle rich, in former Citizens' Theatre supremo Giles Havergal's smart adaptation, with ace performances all down the line, is unlikely to rouse the Pitlochry hordes to make a revolution. To have a game of golf, perhaps.
Or to breed pigs. This is the Wodehouse with a pig in the outhouse. Lord Emsworth focuses keenly on his prize-winning sow Empress of Blandings (the grounds of Blandings Castle stretch into an idealised pastoral distance in Ken Harrison's pastel-hued setting, with its flexible structures for quick scenic mobility). All else is a blur to him, as Jonathan Battersby's distracted aristo makes evident. Managing things is left to Lady Constance, whom Jenny Lee plays with surprising but effective restraint: she doesn't have to bark loud to suggest who wears the trousers.
Most of the rest consists of young lovers trying to bring about their various unions; it's to achieve this end the Empress is 'kidnapped'. There's also ex-adventurer Galahad, striking fear with the prospect of publishing his memoirs, a slimy private detective (Richard Addison in oily, wavy-haired cheap splendour) and a splendid gal from the chorus-line in Amy Ewbank's plebian-named but fine-mannered Sue Brown.
By including appropriate lines of Wodehouse's narrative in the dialogue, Havergal holds on to the inimitable prose style and creates comic moments through the statement of a character's reaction to some surprise, followed by its visual expression. A cheap trick, which never fails.
Director Richard Baron keeps the action moving, necessary in something composed of so many short scenes. The actors relish the opportunities he and Havergal provide, such as a car-drive behind a 2-D bonnet and windshield set, the (standing) actors bumping along against shadow-projections of other road-users. Later, young Ronnie (clearly a Fish to be reckoned with in Anthony Glennon's characterful incarnation ) says he's about to drive off again. Someone throws him a steering-wheel from the wings, and lo, he's away.
Darrell Brockis turns the handsome young hero manner he shows in the season's Agatha Christie to comic purposes with elegance and clarity, while Martyn James is splendidly comic as the butler Beach, whose loyalty to young Ronnie implicates him in the plot against the Empress. So guilty does this leave him that any sudden sound sends him into tray-dropping fright. Top-hole, what.
Beach: Martyn James
Hugo Carmody: Darrell Brockis
Millicent Threepwood: Flora Berkeley
Lord Emsworth: Jonathan Battersby
Lady Constance Keeble: Jenny Lee
Galahad Threepwood: Robin Harvey Edwards
Sue Brown: Amy Ewbank
Ronnie Fish: Anthony Glennon
Pilbeam: Richard Addison
Director: Richard Baron
Designer/Costume: Ken Harrison
Lighting: Ace McCarron
Sound: Ronnie McConnell
2006-08-28 13:16:31