Review: Bedroom Farce **
Yorkshire theatre critics and committed Yorkshire theatre audiences were able to wallow in an "Alan Ayckbourn Fest" this week.
With the Scarborough-based writer's How the Other Half Loves opening in his adopted home town on Tuesday night, and this production of his 1975 play opening at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, the following evening, many of us spent two nights running with the "Bard of Middle England".
The strongest element of the second night of consecutive Ayckbourn, unfortunately for this production, was that it showed just how strong Ayckbourn is as a director of his own work.
It's why we really should celebrate this master while we have him. His writing is phenomenally astute, technically incredible, but it is his eye for detail as the director that really lifts his work above other playwrights.
Director Tamara Harvey has received a seal of approval from Ayckbourn himself and she has an impressive CV. But her production suffered from the fact that many of the audience had watched the master in action 24 hours previously.
Of course she can't live up to his standards. Few can. But it made the flaws in this production glaring.
The problems began from the start with unfortunate casting. Denise Black, as Delia, and Christopher Ravenscroft, as Ernest, simply failed to spark.
There were some wonderful lines in the opening scene, some great moments, but a lack of energy and a shade of off-timing in the direction meant the laughs that were in the script went begging.
The energy lifted when the real business of the script got under way. The play's conceit is to put four couples on stage and give them three bedrooms in which to play out the action.
The interlopers into the bedrooms of other couples were Brian Lonsdale as Trevor (one of the few inspired pieces of casting) and Leah Muller as Susannah (a more annoying character I have yet to come across in theatre).
Susannah and Trevor provide the catalyst for the action with one in a long series of arguments at the house-warming party of another couple.
The only other real highlights were an interesting set, a decent performance from Chu Omambala, as Nick, and a genuinely brilliant performance from Brian Lonsdale as the increasingly weird and increasingly funny Trevor.
West Yorkshire Playhouse
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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