THE CONSERVATORY. To 2 February.
London.
THE CONSERVATORY
by Mark Dooley.
Old Red Lion Theatre To 2 February 2008.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 3.30pm.
Runs 1hr 50min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7837 7816.
www.theconservatoryplay.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 January.
High quality family drama finely performed.
With Blackburn as a surname and its Wigan setting, it’s amazing Lancashire repertory theatres haven’t rushed to produce Mark Dooley’s play. All Dooley’s characters show a sympathetic mix of strength and weakness, pointed up by an Ayckbourn-like mixing of time, with scenes moving back as well as forward eventually explaining each other’s significance. Between scenes ‘phone messages also dart time around, etching further details.
Dooley makes matters clear without being obtrusive, never coming between us and his characters with his construction. And construction’s central to his play. A conservatory’s about preservation but, as with Linda Blackburn’s, it’s often a new addition to a home, and, by extension, to a way of living.
It comes at a turning point for the suddenly widowed Linda, with teenage son Michael, a potential professional footballer, to manage, while her own mother keeps popping in. Around them sits a stable northern community; the conservatory’s builder Billy knew Linda at school.
Tony Bell gives him a rough-cut assurance which is increasingly questioned by the action, just as Tina Gray shows there’s more than fussiness to Linda’s mother; her dependability becomes increasingly important as the story’s pattern emerges.
There’s a fine performance too from Jamie Samuel as the son whose anger with his mother is rooted in disappointment over her, as well as at her letting him down. And Sarah Howarth as his girlfriend with a fascinating mix of innocence and seriousness.
Charlotte Gwinner directs clearly, though she shouldn’t have indulged designer Sophie Mosberger in a thematically over-assertive wall crack.
But the play depends on Linda, and one joy of this production is the ever-fine Cate Hamer at the drama’s emotional centre. From the opening, where she’s consumed by joy at a radio report of her son’s match, her essential loving nature’s clear, but it’s often skewed by anger, anxiety or depression.
Throughout, Hamer is rivetingly expressive from head to foot (literally, her feet curling during her mental agony, or one foot lying trapped by a step of the ladder from which she’s fallen) bringing clarity, detail and significance to Linda in all her qualities and shortcomings.
Linda Blackburn: Cate Hamer.
Billy Blakewell: Tony Bell.
Jean Gaskell: Tina Gray.
Michael Blackburn: Jamie Samuel.
Sarah Rigby: Sarah Howarth.
Director: Charlotte Gwinner.
Designer/Costume: Sophie Mosberger.
Lighting: Richard Owen.
Sound: Yamina Mezell.
Composer: Andrew Green.
Fight director: Jonathan Scott.
2008-01-21 15:05:33