TONS OF MONEY. To 14 February.
Tour.
TONS OF MONEY
by Will Evans and Valentine adapted by Alan Ayckbourn.
Tour To 14 February 2009.
Runs 2hr One interval.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 19 January at Richmond Theatre.
Funny enough, if not quite a barrel of laughs.
Debts are mounting for Aubrey and Louise. Then an inheritance suggests a wheeze, which starts a spiral of farcical events, in which stylish Aubrey ends most acts ragged and tattered.
An eavesdropping butler with an eye to the main chance and an old school-friend dropping by join with some household eccentrics and a plot-nudging solicitor to create a paradise of laughter in a 1922 farce that nearly never made the stage, and was given a second lease of life when Alan Ayckbourn spruced it up in the mid-eighties.
There’s a fine cast in this touring revival, including Janet Henfrey as the aunt whose comments from the sidelines – mixing mishearings and perceptive undercuttings – is an example of those character types from farces of the time, with no real part in the plot at all.
It’s pleasant-looking, Simon Scullion’s set creating the slightly dodgy-seeming affluence by which Aubrey’s induced tradesmen to supply on credit. Scullion leaves plenty of room for group action. And director Joe Harmston creates touches of comic detail.
But not an abundance of the moto perpetuo propulsion the logical inanities and increasingly desperate action need. Though Mark Curry and Caroline Langrishe knock back the opening scene with a fine insouciance, much of the time is like a short ride in a fast machine with a sense the hand-brake’s slightly on. There’s plenty to look out for, but the experience isn’t quite as exhilarating as you feel it should be. Sometimes the dialogue, always intelligently spoken, doesn’t skate along with quite the inconsequent ease ideally required.
Things improve in the later scenes, partly as two new characters provide impetus, creating a trio of bearded look-alikes, two of them assuming the third one’s identity. Among these Eric Carte hits precisely the right note of hilarious intensity as he veers between studied upper-class tones and moments when surprise brings out his natural cockney.
Otherwise, it’s the servants who have comic class, Finty Williams’ enamoured Simpson assisting Christopher Timothy’s august butler in his machinations, including a sequence of coded gestures which they forcefully direct at inappropriate people – the funniest thing in the evening.
Sprules: Christopher Timothy.
Simpson: Finty Williams.
Miss Mullet: Janet Henfrey.
Louise: Caroline Langrishe.
Aubrey: Mark Curry.
Giles: Keith Clifford.
Jean: Lysette Anthony.
Chesterman: Eric Richard.
Henery: Eric Carte.
Maitland: Antony Gabriel.
Director: Joe Harmston.
Designer: Simon Scullion.
Lighting: Mark Howett.
2009-01-23 12:20:53