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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Unhappy families: Benjamin Hurd-Greenall as Brinton, Katharine Williams as Jocelyn, Ella Swain as the disinterested Amy, John Whittell, holding court as the pompous Mortimer and David Bloxham as Norris It Could Be Any One of Us Hall Green Little Theatre **** Alan Aycknourn’s speciality is dysfunctional families and when it comes to what we might call functionally deprived, the Chalke family are in a class of their own. Their late father was a philistine when it came to the arts but did have the art of making money while mother embraced every art going and wanted her children to be painters, dancers, musicians . . . anything artistic. Unfortunately, she was also completely talentless and passed on that trait to her offspring. Thus we have Brinton, the artist, in the loosest sense of the word, played in a vague sort of way – artistic one might say – by Benjamin Hurd-Greenall. Brinton spends his life painting away in a studio with a leaking roof. He is a latter day Van Gogh, but sadly only in the sense he has yet to sell a picture in his lifetime, in fact, no one seems to have actually seen any of his paintings. Then we have his sister Jocelyn who is . . . almost . . . normal, in the circumstances, played in a matter of fact way by Katharine Williams. She had all the lessons known to the arts . . . dancing, drama, art, piano . . . and has become a writer with some 34 novels to her name. The only problem is that none of her novels have actually been finished and her star detective, Martin Stonegate, has never actually managed to complete a plot and solve a case – hence no final chapters. Indeed, artistically, her only success, of sorts, was marrying a cellist in a Birmingham symphony orchestra and producing a child, Amy. Amy is, let us say, a teenager. She is in a sort of constant rebellion, not so much a rebel without a cause, more a disciple of passive resistance in a take it or leave it, I don’t care, happily seething under it all, whatever it is, performance by Ella Swain. She has been enrolled in classes for every artistic endeavour known to man, or in her case teenage girls, and that seems to be going really well. Anyone ever mentioned appearances can be deceptive?
Best of enemies: Norris and Mortimer Jocelyn’s marriage was merely an overture rather than a full symphony it seems and has been over for many a year, hence we now have Norris Honeywell, who has been Jocelyn’s live-in lover for the past 10 years of so. Norris, given a wide ranging air of frustration by David Bloxham, is a claims investigator for an insurance company. His main frustration being that he was once the best there was at sniffing our fraud – his claim by the way – and just wanted that last big case to arrive for him to solve as (drum roll) a real detective. Vying for his biggest frustration is Mortimer, Jocelyn and Brinton’s older brother, who he detests. Mortimer is the most successful Chalke artistically – which in this family is not saying much – and as such lauds it over the family although his position as head of the family is not so much from his achievements, little as they are, but the fact that mother, for reasons that must question her sanity, left the house and entire estate to him. He won an award as young composer of the year some 30 odd years ago and has written symphonies, sonatas, trios, operas – you name it and he has written it with his prodigious output. The only problem is that the only person to have performed any of his works is him with the only audience, under immense sufferance, the family. John Whittell gives us a deliciously nasty and vindictive Mortimer. He has the upper hand in that everyone lives there only under his good (a technical rather than descriptive word here) will. He’s a bully, carries his award cup and huge output of unperformed, uncommissioned, unwanted works around with him as a badge of honour and, by the way, is universally hated by everyone, Norris merely being head of the queue. Life would continue in its fractured and fractious way for ever it seems until Mortimer dropped a bombshell of nuclear proportions and invited one of his old piano pupils . . . correction . . . his only piano pupil, from some 20 years ago, to visit, and not only visit, but visit as a honoured guest. Having lost touch two decades ago he had traced her using a private detective. As she was merely his pupil, nothing else, and her only claim to fame was she was his one and only pupil, weird would be an understatement, but this is the Chalke’s where weird is the norm.
Welcome . . . sort of: Mortimer and Jocelyn with Emily Beaton as Wendy So, enter Wendy Windwood, pet shop owner married to a newsagent, talentless former piano pupil, Wendy, played by a rather baffled by it all Emily Beaton. Wendy is an outlier in all this in that she is hardly connected with the family – six months of piano lessons twenty years ago hardly counts - and, more importantly, she is normal, married, kids, no odd hang-ups, and . . . Let’s not get too involved with why she is there beyond saying that this is one of Ayckbourn’s travails out of his comfort zone. His normal hunting ground is among suburban families with the sort of problems or situations any of us could be faced with and then supercharging them to the realms of the ridiculous. He tried his hand at ghost stories with Haunting Julia and here he has his own take on the country house murder mystery so loved by the likes of Agatha Christie – so perhaps there is a hint of a giveaway of where it is all heading there. At least it gives Norris a chance to become a real detective and he does have his moment when he does his Hercule Poirot moment, calling all the suspects together in the drawing room and going through the case clue by (yawn) clue which could have resulted in more deaths as everyone slowly lost the will to live. It is a clever plot which gives you no end of suspects and even a possibility of a suicide and there is some sharp dialogue and wit in there. There is motive and suspicion cloaking every character and the play, first performed in 1983, has the possibility with minor changes to have a different murderer with each performance. It is an interesting play, a twist on the Christie genre with each character a suspect at some point. We do discover the killer, eventually, or do we, maybe we have been deceived yet again, Norris certainly thinks so. Personally the end seemed rather a let down, everything left hanging, after a long, slow, well-constructed build up, instead of a satisfying dénouement we got a rather damp squid, either a possibility that all was not as it seemed and there was more to come, or perhaps Norris was more deranged than we thought . . . The team has come up with an excellent period set, a dilapidated run down country house - Mortimer did not spend money it seems – with tired furniture and Rachael Ludlam, a long time actress at Hall Green, has done a fine job on her directorial debut in keeping up a steady pace and simmering sense of jeopardy. As a play it is debatable if it is Ayckbourn at his best but there are enough twists and turns, dead ends and red herrings there to keep lovers of thrillers and murder mysteries entertained and guessing to the end . . . and beyond it seems. To 24-05-25. Roger Clarke 17-05-25 |
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