Goddard's Polish

PUBLICATION DATE 22 MARCH 2011
Written for Londonist.com

 
A brand new Alan Ayckbourn comedy, his 74^th, celebrating he’s now twice a prolific as Shakespeare, comes as close to London as its six month tour permits (Richmond this week, Windsor next) and seems to ask ‘am I ready for the West End?’

 It has some familiar ingredients: three differently disappointed wives, three feckless or inert husbands, portrayals of the middle-English middle-class so accurate that if he’d set up a giant mirror in the bar of Richmond Theatre during the interval, Ayckbourn could have got a third act out of it – and, as in The Norman Conquests a male protagonist who manages to attract and then disrupt the equilibrium of wildly different women.

The novelty this time is that the ‘Norman’ character, George Riley, remains offstage throughout and his complex personality is revealed only in hearsay when his doctor gives him six months to live. Ayckbourn makes him so many different things to so many different people: mentor, rock idol, teacher, inspirational lover, moralist and endlessly supportive friend – and yet also someone that the other characters clearly don’t know as well as they think they do - that you might wonder if Ayckbourn is playing with faith and they’re talking about God.

 The play’s clever because by restraining actual detail it makes the audience project their own fears, thoughts and doubts into the characters and their situation – what starts out as a surface comedy about amateur dramatics along the lines of his A Chorus of Disapproval turns into something much darker in the stronger second act when some uncomfortable truths are revealed. 

At first it looks headed for a typical farcical ending and a quick curtain, but then twists sharply to a sombre conclusion which had the audience discussing it all the way back to the station. Is it headed for the West End?  Possibly, and with an unexpectedly subtle central performance from Liza Goddard as the oldest of the wives as well as convincing support from Kim Wall as her husband, it already has the feel of a Shaftesbury Avenue production.   But Ayckbourn often re-assesses his plays after their first outing and some judicious tightening and perhaps introducing the darker themes earlier in the process could make an interesting play even better.

The Norman Failures

As newspaper reviewers have said, comparisons are odious but I'm going for it anyway. In 1974, The Norman Conquests trilogy was a landmark in theatre comedy, Ayckbourn's coming of age and coming to town in the first of the interlinked/alternate ending series of plays. It was also cast with actors who WOULD BECOME household names in TV sitcoms, not those who had already achieved the dubious honour and thereby lies the failure of the Old Vic production.

Tom Courtenay and Michael Gambon already had impressive stage credentials, and it's not fair to set their reputations against Stephen Mangan and Ben Miles respectively. Mangan is an excellent TV actor, deservedly rated for Green Wing as much as his Barclaycard adverts, but he's miscast as the wild and woolly Norman, failing to emulate Courtenay's touching pathos and vulnerability, and whilst magnetic on the small screen, unkempt and undressed for the stage he seems to have lost his allure.


MANGAN

MINGIN'

Ben Miles does much better in the role of Tom the vet, but his tragic flaw is simply that he is not Michael Gambon.

Ayckbourn writes best for women and two of the three female characters became archetypes for possibly two of the most popular TV characterisations ever. 'The Good Life' writers John Esmonde and Bob Larbey chose Felicity Kendal and Penelope Keith after seeing them perform on stage together and the characters of Margo and Barbara represent a tangible debt to The Norman Conquests.

Amanda Root doesn't have the stature to be as commanding as Keith, and seems all the more peevish by comparison: her transcendence into passionate woman is far less believable without the physical hauteur to set up the situation. Jessica Hynes (Stephenson) is another solidly talented TV writer and actor, but can't achieve the girlish vulnerability of Kendal's Annie and has been dressed appallingly by a costume designer whom I would guess didn't live through it and has therefore treated the period as a joky freak show, instead of researching more accurately suburban fashion of the mid-70s.

Pitching the play in the round lends it a fresh initimacy, taking it back to the original Scarborough production of 1973 - although these are not necessarily characters with whom one would wish to be intimate since all of them have an unpleasant side - and this encouraged some of last night's audience to make audible contributions. Perhaps Ayckbourn should develop an interactive script.;

Saw Andrew Lloyd Webber in the audience, I hope he's not considering turning it into a musical.