THE PEOPLE ARE FRIENDLY. To 11 June.
Hornchurch
THE PEOPLE ARE FRIENDLY
by Michael Wynne
Queen's Theatre To 11 June 2005
Tue-Sat 8pm Mat 2, 11 June 2.30pm
Audio-described 11 June 2.30pm
BSL Signed 1 June
Runs 2hr 40min One interval
TICKETS: 01708 443333
www.queens-theatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 May
Laughter on a bumpy ride.They don't make em like this any more. Like Mark Walters' set, that is. This cutaway angled section of a large house, with attic rooms half-revealed (though never used), with its vista of a green lawn and blue sky above, might be from the early Ayckbourn of Relatively Speaking. And Ayckbourn's title could fit Michael Wynne's play. As the reunion of Michelle, Mersey girl made good in London, now returned with a southern sophisticate husband to her family in Birkenhead, proceeds a lot of frank family talk emerges.
Bob Carlton's revival (running some 20 minutes more than the Royal Court premiere) plays it in the comic manner of Ayckbourn. The Queen's larger, wider stage invites, like the Hornchurch company's general style, more openness; the people in this theatre are always friendly.
Even the child Eddie, speechless in the presence of adults, almost coaxed into speech by Michelle's attempts at sympathy, raises laughter rather than causing shock with his moment of lone violence. And Minnie Crowe makes a fine comic turn of 16-year old single mum Kirsty, life centred on her mobile phone, dealing drugs, certain silicon breast implants will bring her the celebrity which is her self-sufficient career choice.
She longs for the attention the lap-dancers get in the club where she's a waitress (couldn't Wynne have given the place a name repeated references to the lap-dancing club sound arch?). Kirsty's youthful ignorance-is-bliss confidence shines comically, leaving her edge-of-precipice existence to be inferred.
The older generations offer efficient school-of-rep comic acting. The grinding of human dignity against exclusion from social progress is barely heard against lifestyle laughs over trendy food or nous about rough-pub survival techniques. It's a style levering Loveday Smith's Michelle, an emotional cornerstone in the play, into the role of ridiculous outsider. And it detracts from Donna's anger at her sister's pretensions (the play never debates whether Michelle's in any sense better off than the folks she left behind). There's laughter, but anger's lacking (even in James Earl Adair's father, cheated of a return to real work) making for an enjoyable, if bumpy ride.
Michelle: Loveday Smith
Robert: James Eaton
Kathleen: Diana Croft
Donna: Wendy Parkin
Brian: Peter Helmer
Eddie: Billy Irving/Christopher Willmore
John: James Earl Adair
Kirsty: Minnie Crowe
Director: Bob Carlton
Designer: Mark Walters
Lighting: Andy Rouse
Dialect coach: Janie Booth
2005-05-27 12:05:38