WHAT'S IN THE CAT. To 22 December.

London

WHAT’S IN THE CAT
by Linda Brogan

Royal Court (Jerwood Theatre Upstairs) To 22 December 2005
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 4pm
BSL Signed 15 Dec
Post-show talk 13 Dec
Runs 1hr 50min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7565 5000
www.royalcourttheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 9 December

Moss Side marriage under the microscope 30 years on with partial success.
The seventies weren’t just flares and Slade; Linda Brogan’s play, set in 1974 and first seen last month at Manchester’s Contact Theatre, reminds how elementary the state of race relations and feminism were in that decade. Whatever today’s young audiences, on whom Contact focuses, thought of it, the issues come over very differently in impact.

Both Caribbean father Bogey (real name, Humphrey, geddit?) and Irish mother Margaret have the eccentricities most households display. He rubs alcohol over his head then ritually warms his cap or cardigan afterwards before sitting with the deep-voiced authority of a paterfamilias. While she’s hyperactive, angry but desperate to keep her man. Meanwhile their mixed-race son Peter is docile and co-operative, so long as he can spend most time glued to TV programmes. With Bogey’s brother Lee barely existing as a character, it’s young Lauren, standing up for her mother and looking after herself as her pregnancy reaches its period, who becomes the centre of sympathy.

Paulette Randall’s production tries for both comedy and feeling, but is hampered by an awkward setting which divides the limited space between a little-used kitchen and a much-used living-room where characters seem marginalised. There’s a steep upper-storey hardly used in act one and the 2-storey Christmas Tree adds an unrealistic touch.

It’s used thematically, the Christmas lights fusing, then mended, then as a sign of separation staying on with the men downstairs while being switched off above where mother and daughter argue over how to tackle Bogey’s complacency. Lauren simultaneously keeps her mother from giving in by going downstairs, while glamming her up with frock and heels.

What does for the evening really though, is Mary Jo Randle’s coarse-acting display as Margaret. A middle-aged woman who finds trouble putting her specs on straight, whose drunken rage against neighbours hostile to her mixed-race Moss Side marriage gives rise to the title adage (“What’s in the cat is surely in the kitten”), Margaret needs more control than this acting anarchy provides. But it’s gender politics that wins through, thanks to Rachel Brogan’s daughter, maturer than her mother, and Linda Brogan’s strongest character.

Lauren: Rachel Brogan
Peter: Curtis Cole
Margaret: Mary Jo Randle
Bogey: David Webber
Lee: Geoff Aymer

Director: Paulette Randall
Designer: Libby Watson
Lighting: James Farncombe
Sound: Dan Steele
Fight director: Andy Quine

2005-12-10 12:33:04