THE OLD COUNTRY. To 6 May.
London.
THE OLD COUNTRY
by Alan Bennett.
Trafalgar Studios (Studio 1) To 6 May 2006.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm.
Runs 2hr 25min One interval.
TICKETS: 0870 060 6632 (booking fee).
www.theambassadors.com (booking fee).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 March.
A dacha despair: the English abroad living lives of typically quiet desperation.
“Oh yes…Nowadays” say a couple of characters between them in Alan Bennett’s 1977 play. The first 2 words’ languid regret governs the reference to modern times, which are as repugnant to the visitors from England here as to those in exile. Regret centres on the bakers Lyons having closed their once-famous Corner House cafes during the 14 years Hilary and his wife Bron have been English people abroad.
This educated malaise is close to what the English once thought Chekhov was about, so it’s fitting people with such a backward-looking mindset should turn out (Bennett’s teasing about it till he comes clean) to be in Russia. Despite a comic reference to all the “unnecessary countryside” around Hilary’s dacha, the minds of these people are enclosed by their sense of loss. Even super-suave Duff, member of every Great & Good committee going, has a hollow centre. If Russia’s another country, so is the past for this 56-year old.
Ultimately, this isn’t Chekhov’s world but the Britain whose apparently terminal decline evoked a sense of defeated irony from all but the politically-committed Left. Bennett deals with the regret left when idealism’s fizzled out in damp reality. Stephen Unwin’s fine English Touring Theatre production boasts Timothy West, swathed in irony (the defining English characteristic for Bennett). Yet, with all the tetchiness, moments of spleen and on-tap irony, Hilary is necessarily more interesting than he would be in life.
There’s a respectful reference to the latest novel by Establishment novelist Anthony Powell. In 1971 Powell published Books Do Furnish A Room. But book-piles merely litter Hilary’s room, a mouldering emblem of his life, stacked up uselessly in separation from the old country, in a new country that doesn’t want him.
The 4 mature characters are beautifully performed, but Unwin’s scrupulous direction shows most clearly in the carefully-pointed contrast of the young people, Tim Delap’s lower-class Eric, ignored by the Establishment for whom he does not exist, and his wife, whose sour, stern efficiency Rebecca Charles admirably makes the note of someone who has learned her ethnicity leaves her an eternal outsider in her homeland.
Hilary: Timothy West.
Bron: Jean Marsh.
Eric: Tim Delap.
Olga: Rebecca Charles.
Veronica: Susan Tracy.
Duff: Simon Williams.
Director: Stephen Unwin.
Designer: John Gunter.
Lighting: Ben Ormerod.
Sound: Dan Steele.
Costume: Mark Bouman.
Assistant director: Katie McAleese.
2006-03-23 10:39:15