THE SAFARI PARTY. To 18 May.

Scarborough

THE SAFARI PARTY
by Tim Firth

Stephen Joseph Theatre To 18 May 2002
7.30 Mat Sat 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 15min Two intervals
Audio described 16 May, 18 May mat
Signed 17 May

TICKETS 01723 370541
Review Timothy Ramsden 30 April

Two acts of aching laughter let down by morally dubious conclusion.Tim Firth's new comedy is so uproariously funny for its first two-thirds that it seems unsporting to say it shoots itself in the foot in the final act. But shoot itself it does, with loud report and acrid stink.

These Safaris are a suburban Cheshire pretension, a meal with each course taken in a different household. Brothers Daniel and Adam, having inherited a run-down farm, take part in the hope that nouveau riche retail entrepreneur Lol and his wife Esther, who longs for real rural tradition, will give them work. With Esther and Lol comes disenchanted, dry-witted daughter Bridget.

Then there's antiques dealer Inga, the most nebulous character. Onstage comparatively little, she's of German extraction but represents true rural concern - yet is up to fabrication herself if a dodgy provenance raises prices.

Firth unfolds his situation with expertise; the significance of Daniel and Adam's struggle to assemble a flatpack table is apparent when their old farmhouse table becomes focus of fake history. He has fun with invented pastimes and legends, and neatly plays an invented picturesque past against actual rural poverty and mendacity.

The problem is less that the final act sees hilarity fall away than that moral dilemmas are thrown to the wings in favour of a cosy ending where all conspire to foist more fakes on the unsuspecting.

This could work, if handled with the moral irony of, say, Shaw's Widowers' Houses. But it demands taking at face value. Maybe that's a problem emanating from the sympathy-gaining alertness and comic detail of Ayckbourn's technically unerring production. Daniels Crowder and Casey are excellent as the ever-nervous farmers in an age that doesn't need their farm. Amanda Abbington brings a fine sardonic edge to the daughter dragged along by fond parents.

Lol and Esther are butts of the evening but Christine Moore gives her character a dignity climaxing in her turning-worm of the final scene, while John Branwell is as splenetically forceful as ever – making us more complicit in his xenophobic jokes than we might want to be. Helen Ryan dignifies the unconvincing role of Inga with a sympathetic grace.

Daniel: Daniel Casey
Adam: Daniel Crowder
Esther: Christine Moore
Lol: John Branwell
Bridget: Amanda Abbington
Inga: Helen Ryan

Director: Alan Ayckbourn
Designer: Michael Holt
Lighting: Kath Geraghty

2002-05-07 01:09:06