THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE. To 17 January.

Manchester

THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE
by John Dighton

Royal Exchange Theatre To 17 January 2004
Mon-Fri 7.30pm 26 December, 2 January 8pm Sat 8pm Mat Wed 2.30pm Sat & 26 December, 2 January 4pm
Audio-described 17 January 4pm
Runs 2hr 25min Two intervals

TICKETS: 0161 833 983
boxoffice@royalexchange.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 18 December

Three cheers for laughter: Hilary Hall one; St Swithin's two.A cosy comedy is classic Royal Exchange Christmas fare, and if neither play nor production this year quite makes classic status, there's enough to enjoy. Set in post-war days (a boy leaving school has to be followed by his ration book) Dighton's well-oiled farcical mechanisms lead blissfully through delayed inevitabilities and surprising plot complications.

Janet Henfrey's severe bean-pole Head of a gals' academy mistakenly relocated to a boys' school by blundering yet impregnable officialdom, is the physical opposite of Margaret Rutherford, who committed Miss Whitchurch to celluloid. Nothing can beat the sudden sight of Rutherford striding firm-faced ahead of her girls toward Hilary Hall, where they're still working out accommodation logistics, unaware it's the other sex heading their way. But Henfrey makes the part distinctly her own.

As for Godfrey Pond, Hilary Hall's Headmaster, the ghost of Alistair Sim, dithering and feeble even in irritation, won't disappear. Yet Philip Madoc brings a neatly flustered authority, mixed with sly complicity when Hilary's naughtiest boy uses his machinations against the intruders. The scene where Hopcroft Minor's punishment, insisted on by Miss Whitchurch, dwindles to nothing, plus a reward to boot, is delightful.

Among the masters, fine actor Simon Robson tries too hard with his morbidly disillusioned Billings, a near-Dostoyevskeyan study in gloom. James Cash hits the balance in his moonfaced love for Anna Hewson's Miss Harper shared with jealously conniving pupil-with-a-pash Barbara (comically scheming Claire Lams).

Hewson's elegant restraint focuses laughter among the mistresses in Joanna Riding's effervescent, fresh-faced Miss Gossage. Entering with a backpack from which two hockey-sticks peer antennae-like, giving her the look of a cheery hare, Riding swirls and swoops over the stage with gleeful, glee-inducing, mania.

Among the parents, John Cording's heavy father is too much on one note, but his wife and the proud clerical parents of one of the girls (you can envisage life at the vicarage) catch the right tone.

Plenty of laughs then, if not the final degree of farcical spiralling; each viewer will determine if the switch to Emil Wolk's final physical routine caps the comedy or provides a jarring change of style.

Dick Tassell: James Cash
Rainbow: Gordon Langford-Rowe
Rupert Billings: Simon Robson
Godfrey Pond: Philip Madoc
Miss Evelyn Whitchurch: Janet Henfrey
Miss Gossage: Joanna Riding
Hopcroft Minor: Simon Watts
Barbara Cahoun: Claire Lams
Joyce Harper: Anna Hewson
The Reverend Edward Peck: Neil Salvage
Mrs Peck: Judy Norman
Edgar Sowter: John Cording
Mrs Sowter: Marie Collett

Director: Braham Murray
Designer: Simon Higlett
Lighting: Richard Owen
Sound: Steve Brown
Finale routine: Emil Wolk

2003-12-25 17:04:51