At the Torch |
| Torch Theatre- Bedroom Farce , Torch Theatre, Milford Haven , October 23, 2004 |
| This review first appeared in the Western Mail You can tell a lot from people’s bedrooms, says Delia (and, yes, she really is a Delia figure) in Alan Aykbourn’s 1970s comedy, and as she says it all of us in the audience allow our minds to flit with some embarrassment to our own nests – and to look more closely at the three bedrooms that make up the set on stage at Milford. Delia and hubby Ernest live out retirement in a comfortably affluent-looking regency stripes and bedside tables, Jan and Dick are straight from the Ikea catalogue in a kind of kitchen-workplace-bedroom, Kate and Malcolm frolic in mess that you somehow feel will never have the half-stripped walls finished while Susannah and Trevor – well, we never see their bedroom partly because they spend all their time in other people’s (though not in that sense) but mainly because they are at each other’s throats rather than any other more erogenous zones. It isn’t just the space, of course. Delia and Ernest’s middle-class haven hides, like their contented marriage, a guest room that has a damp patch and a house with guttering hanging off. Dick is in bed in a room that suggests that work is more important than home, suffering extravagantly from a strained back but probably always just as grumpy, while the long-suffering Jan inexplicable continues to love him. Kate and Malcolm’s silly games degenerate into Malcolm’s macho posturing and poor Kate’s forgiving obeisance. Aykbourn’s earlier comedies, before his plays became darker and more political, deal with the seemingly endless stupidity, insensitivity and self-centredness of men and the inability of women to be other than long-suffering martyrs. Bedroom Farce is a typically wryly pessimistic satire premised on the idea that couples all have “bedroom problems” but somehow survive despite inherent incompatibility – the apparently happy and cosy older couple moaning about young people today and enjoying their pilchards on toast have managed to get to pensionhood without confronting any problems. And crucial to any Ayckbourn comedy is the central disruptive figure – Norman in the Norman Conquests and here Trevor, a hopelessly egocentred naïf who manages to create chaos in other’s lives as well as his own, where the very idea of stability is an impossible dream when the partner is Susannah, that other disturbing staple of Aybourniana, the mentally ill woman.. Now all this can emerge naturally in any production, so skilled a playwright is the Scarborough maestro. But unless it’s going to be played just for laughs a lot more has to be found that exposes the cynical underbelly of the farce – and I have to say that Peter Doran and Kate Dove’s direction for the Torch only starts to dig beneath the surface. Peter Doran played Trevor when the Torch first staged this 25 years ago and today, an older and wiser and more experienced man, he returns to the role and acquits himself well – though it’s Vivienne Rowdon with a marvelously subtle performance as Kate whop stands out. There are no real faults with this latest assured piece from Milord’s resident much-praised company and if you are an Aykbourn fan you may well be satisfied – but for me there were few highspots either. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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