THE LADY IN THE VAN. To 15 June.
Leeds
THE LADY IN THE VAN
by Alan Bennett
Quarry Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse To 15 June 2002
Mon-Sat 7.30 Mat Thur & Sat 2pm
Runs 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS 0113 213 7700
Review Timothy Ramsden 6 June
Bennett revelling in human quirks and oddities again: the central characters come over strongly in this production on his home territory.So, you're a writer. And an idiosyncratic old woman claiming a past as a potential pianist educated by nuns decides to use your front garden as a parking lot when the council's yellow lines drive her vehicle/home off the streets. You don't let her: not for 15 years. Not without making sure there's a book – or play - in it for you.
But Alan Bennett (who crops up twice, simultaneously, as a character, in a way that would once have been thought experimental) doesn't, in the end, make it seem like that. Even though he follows the line he was repeatedly pushed into by the real Miss Shepherd, seller of pencils and moral tracts. She would refuse assistance when it was offered, making the person offering (ie our Alan) feel guilty – while happily continuing to deposit bags of faeces around the place.
For Bennett - who has deposited nothing more noxious than this gently reflective comedy on the stage – ends up blaming himself. The foul plastic binliner of his heart overflows with guilt. Partly it's an old lady thing – as Miss Shepherd fills his garden, worry over his declining mother lunges through his life. One wonders how long a younger, or male, driver would have lasted on Bennett territory. But it's also the division between the Bennett living his, none-too-adventurous, life and the one turning that life's curiosities into 'material'.
In the West End, Maggie Smith radiated star quality through the facial grime. In Leeds, Ann Rye has it exactly right: Miss Shepherd, from the inside, is rationality itself. But there's the hint life might well have been too much outside the charmed circle she's drawn for herself. The two Malcolms, Scates and James, look reassuringly different – no mix up over who's living and who's writing about living – while sharing the famous Bennett nasality.
There's indifferent playing elsewhere. The van doesn't rise to Chitty-Chitty's independent heights, but is suitably messy in an otherwise elegant north London street. And Ian Brown's confident handling of this piece suggests the rightness of his in-house promotion to Jude Kelly's successor as West Yorkshire Playhouse supremo.
Alan Bennett 2: Malcolm James
Miss Shepherd: Ann Rye
Alan Bennett: Malcolm Scates
Mam: Vanessa Rosenthal
Rufus: Nigel Hastings
Pauline: Helen Hobson
Jane/Interviewer: Ganiat Kasumu
Lout/Ambulance Driver/Miss Shepherd's Doctor: Greg Haiste
Underwood: Ian Burford
Mam's Doctor/ Leo Fairchild: David Bowen
Director: Ian Brown
Designer: Dick Bird
Lighting: Neil Austin
Sound: Mic Pool
Composer: Phillip Dupuy
Voice Coach: Penny Dyer
2002-06-09 11:31:36