TONIGHT AT 8.30. To 2 September.
Chichester
TONIGHT AT 8.30
by Noel Coward
Minerva Theatre To 2 September 2006
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed, Sat & 10 Aug 2.15pm
Audio-describe 10 Aug 7.45pm (Part I), 16 Aug 2.15pm, 31 Aug (Part II)
Runs 2hr 50min Two intervals (Tonight at 8.30 Part I)
2hr 45min Two intervals (Tonight at 8.30 Part II)
TICKETS: 01243 781312
www.cft.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 August
Small plays make big impact in major production.
It seems with Noel Coward, less is more. While themes from better-known comedies, including Hay Fever, Private Lives and Present Laughter, suddenly gleam out in these programmes of one-acters, and there are a couple of surprising parallels with another high-rated West End dramatist of their time, the one-act programmes which Coward wrote in the mid-1930s to give himself and favourite co-star Gertrude Lawrence a varied, rolling repertoire in place of single, long-run shows, have the force of his most famous plays without their attenuated length.
And in Lucy Bailey's long-considered revival, 6 of the 10 Tonight at 8.30 one-acters shine bright in one of the theatre events of the year. Josefina Gabrielle and Alexander Hanson make an attractive leading pair, effortlessly skilled in all these plays' moods, from the tragedy of The Astonished Heart to Hands Across the Sea's delirious farce.
They aren't, of course, stars like Coward and Lawrence. Even better, on the Minerva's scale, rather than radiating temperaments, they are exceptionally fine actors. Outright comic technique, the mix of onstage comedy (seen, as it were, from backstage) and volatile dressing-room sniping in Red Peppers, or the transition from the apparently funereal to musical fun-and-games in Family Album are managed with the confidence and ease vital to these brilliant display pieces.
They're surrounded by a strong company, with some standout performances. Madeleine Worrall is a sophisticated heartbreaker and sulky schoolgirl equally convincingly, while Nigel Anthony makes a strong impression with the briefest entry. Lurching around as an aged family retainer, arriving as a puzzled ex-pat mistaken for someone else, he’s magnificent and precise, hitting the right mood each time.
But Hanson and Gabrielle are the twin-foci of these pieces, transforming effortlessly in age, character and mood. He's as fine in glacial comedy as with deep emotion, she as convincing as a drained housewife or glamorous star. It's as the latter she ends, with Shadow Play, where Coward approaches the time-world of J B Priestley, as a soured marriage is given a second chance.
This is the culmination too, of Lucy Bailey's fine production, a fine, abstracted piece of near-Hollywood fantasy built round an elegant double-bed. And, sprinkled throughout with Django Bates' atmospheric yet never over-assertive score, Coward's vignettes are given a major force by variety within a sense of unity. As someone used to handling hefty classics, Bailey ensures character and situation are specific and coherent, comedy arising (where appropriate) out of the script, never imposed upon it.
As with the Rattigan which preceded these plays in the Minerva, Chichester is dong a first-rate job showing that, 50-years on, the Look Back in Anger revolution might have changed the face of British theatre, but it didn't fill a void: there were playwrights around who were expert at their job.
That revolution was as much social as dramaturgical. Chichester 2006 is no better a place to prove it than the mid-thirties West End, but this is drama that plays to a specific audience, a ghetto of affluent middle-class diners and theatregoers and those who would wish to be in their place. Taking Hands to families on means-tested benefits could have provoked a riot at the sight of the self-absorbed inanities of the rich, while the world of the lower-class wage-slave and his wife might have told Coward the realities of being the worm-that-turned husband of Fumed Oak.
That was then; for now, Bailey's modern, yet always sympathetic production makes for a matinee and evening (or 2 evenings) of joy.
Tonight at 8.30pm I:
Red Peppers
George Pepper: Alexander Hanson
Lilly Pepper: Josefina Gabrielle
Alf: Jonathon Bond
Bert Bentley: Peter Moreton
Mr Edwards: Nigel Anthony
Mabel Grace: Susan Wooldridge
Mabel Grace’s Dresser: Madeleine Worrall
Variety Performer: Tamzin Grififin
Theatre Fly-Man: Richard Hanse;;
The Astonished Heart
Barbara Faber: Josefina Gabrielle
Tim Verney: Richard Hansell
Susan: Tamzin Griffin
Ernest: Peter Moreton
Sir Reginald: Nigel Anthony
Leonora Vail: Madeleine Worrall
Christian Faber: Alexander Hanson
Family Album
Emily Valance: Madeleine Worrall
Richard Featherways: Richard Hansell
Lavinia Featherways: Susan Wooldridge
Jasper Featherways: Alexander Hanson
Jane Featherways: Josefina Gabrielle
Harriet Winter: Tamzin Griffin
Charles Winter: Peter Moreton
Edward Valance: Jonathan Bond
Burrows: Nigel Anthony
Tonight at 8.30 II
Hands Across the Sea
Walters: Madeleine Worrall
Lady Maureen Gilpin (Piggie): Josefina Gabrielle
Peter Gilpin: Alexander Hanson
Lt Alistair Corbett RN: Peter Moreton
Mrs Wadhurst: Susan Wooldridge
Mr Wadhurst: Nigel Anthony
Mr Burnham: Jonathan Bond
Hon Clare Wedderburn: Tamzin Griffin
Major (Bogey) Gosling: Richard Hansell
Fumed Oak
Elsie Gow: Madeleine Worrall
Doris Gow: Josefina Gabrielle
Mrs Rocket: Susan Wooldridge
Henry Gow: Alexander Hanson
Shadow Play
Victoria Gayforth: Josefina Gabrielle
Martha Cunningham: Tamzin Griffin
Lena: Susan Wooldridge
Simon Gayforth: Alexander Hanson
Sibyl Heston: Madeleine Worrall
Michael Doyle: Richard Hansell
Young Man: Jonathan Bond
George Cunningham
Hodge: Peter Moreton
Director: Lucy Bailey
Designer: Dick Bird
Lighting: Giuseppe Di Iorio
Sound: Nick Lidster
Music/Arranger: Django Bates
Music Director: Matthew Scott
Choreographer: Leah Hausman
Voice coach: Janie Van Hool
Fight director: Terry King
Assistant director: Thomas Hescott
2006-08-03 02:19:10