THE KIILLING OF MR TOAD. To 4 May.
London.
THE KILLING OF MR TOAD
by David Gooderson.
Finborough Theatre above The Finborough Road Brasserie 118 Finborough Road SW10 9ED To 4 May 2009.
Sun-Mon 7.30pm
Runs 2hr One interval.
TICKETS: 0844 847 1652 (24hr no booking fee).
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk (reduced full-price tickets online).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 3 May.
The Wind in the Willows and the wide world’s challenge.
Why is this play performing twice weekly, in front of the set for the already-tiny Finborough’s main production? David Gooderson’s piece began life at Salisbury Playhouse in 1982, and 27-years on it deserves a larger, longer run. So do its actors, whose experience and expertise show the well-crafted play to advantage.
Since that first production, its main structural and thematic device has become increasingly familiar. Gooderson explores the life of Wind in the Willows author Kenneth Grahame by enrolling the novel’s animal characters, portraying Grahame himself as the nervous Mole.
In Jeffrey Perry’s performance, the ever-hesitant, nervous and shy Grahame (he begins his marriage-long sexual neglect by telling his wife on their wedding-night he wishes to avoid “depravity”) is every reticent inch the bank secretary the writer was till forcibly retired for poor performance at the age of 49. His nervously mobile features and smile become a shield against depth of feeling.
Denied the obvious outlet for her energies by her husband, Elspeth lives by idealising their sole child Alastair. If Mole expresses Grahame’s interior nature, the voluble Toad shows his son, with his home-made one-man dramas.
Yet behind the exuberance he suffers sight problems his mother refuses to see, as she does his other limitations. Caught between her great expectations of him and the hard world outside the family, he repeatedly lies down whenever life’s demands prove too much during his short, unhappy existence.
Leo Conville’s performance hits home in the increasingly frequent serious sections. Stefan Bednarczyk and Timothy Davies fill-in expertly with various, varying characters met along the way. And the whole show’s framed by Grahame’s widow Elspeth. Elizabeth Counsell suggests the passion and energy of Elspeth’s youth, and has a moment of triumph showing Willows’ royalties to snipers.
But it’s her mix of sadness and pride, initially for the husband who gave up writing (he might have said writing gave him up) and whose one success was based on her foraging for old bedtime stories, and in the son who couldn’t cope with life. No wonder she starts and ends alone in the dark with her memories.
Elspeth Grahame: Elizabeth Counsell.
Rat: Stefan Bednarczyk.
Mole: Jeffrey Perry.
Badger: Timothy Davies.
Toad: Leo Conville.
Director: David Gooderson.
Designer: Ruth Hall.
Lighting: Cghris Withers.
Sound: Giles Webb.
Musical Director: Stefan Bednarczyk.
Choreographer: Miranda Fellows.
2009-05-04 00:38:03