At the Torch |
| Torch Theatre- Only a Matter of Time , Torch Theatre Milford Haven , February 12, 2006 |
| This review first appeared in the Western Mail... Alan Plater is one of the best popular dramatists around, with a string of tv successes from The Beiderbeck Affair (still eminently watchable and subversive) to the recent Billy Two-Sheds, and for many of us he holds a special place in the history of alternativel theatre with his 1968 classic Close the Coalhouse Door. But he’s a Geordie (albeit one who’s already written about Wales in his novel Oliver’s Travels) and this political comedy is all about Wales. Beware Englishmen bearing gifts, mischievously suggests the suave moderniser Fanshawe here, and it’s a warning that, ironically, might well apply to dear old Alan Plater, for at least some of the interest in Peter Doran’s production of this play for the Torch Theatre is how a left-wing polemicist from the North-East of England feels he can write about what happened to Wales in the 150 years between the Industrial Revolution and today’s Information Revolution. Whether it’s a tribute to Welsh working-class opposition or an unconscious piece of cultural imperialism, Plater’s heart is undoubtedly in the right place and he would obviously feel an empathy for both Dic Penderyn, whose spirit informs the play, and the young Meredith, who in both his incarnations here has to assume the mantle of a rather stereotypical Welsh working-class radicalism. I say both incarnations because Only a Matter of Time is in two parts. In the first act we meet a stuffy English engineer planning the route of Brunel’s new railway line from London into South Wales and his confrontation with a native young farmer whose whole way of life is threatened by the incursion of the iron way with its accompanying Free Trade, market economy, further insidious imperialism – and the standardisation of clocks so that timetables could be introduced.. In the second half, we find in the same spot – no longer a rural idyll (romantically recreated in Sean Crowley’s customary evocative set) but an upmarket cafe overlooking a shopping complex – two men who could be descendents of the Englishman Fanshawe and the Monmouthshire Meredith. Second time around Fanshawe (Giles Thomas) is a Whitehall official implementing a Government policy of tokenist apologies for historical wrongs (in this case the execution of Dic Penderyn, hero of the Merthyr Riots) and Meredith (Gareth John Bale) is a railway worker on the line that Brunel built, a feisty Luddite and unreformed international soicialist And, in typical Plater fashion, the play chucks up umpteen ideas without really getting anywhere. No debate, no new perspectives – and, oddly, no recognition of any kind of new politics in a devolved Wales. It’s all quite enjoyable, amusing and its basic messages ring bells with ease – but it is a very lightweight comedy. The reason is simple: it isn’t really a stage play. Only a Matter of Time started life as a short radio play and was extended to a full-length piece by the addition of a second act… and it shows. It offers proof of Plater’s ability to write about politics in a clever, witty, engaging way, but is inevitably wordy, static, unstructured and also, ironically, rather old-fashioned. Well done, though, to the Torch for tackling one of the few plays by a non-Welsh playwright to address Welsh issues – although I suspect that a bit more distancing from the text might help the production. It is, unfortunately, hardly the best product to show the rest of Wales how this small theatre company based overlooking the Irish Sea is consistently producing work of high quality, offering little scope to the director and no complexity of character to the actors. But as a two-hander with a single set it makes sensible touring material and will be at a theatre near you some time during the next six weeks. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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