|
|
Saturday night fervour
Rattle of a simple man
Lichfield Garrick Studio
**** WHEN a bloke of 35, give or take a few
years, can’t even say bottom to a prostitute in her boudoir without
blushing and fudging around the issue, then you can take it this isn’t
likely to end . . . horizontally. Percival, Percy to his friends, who all seem to
be male and precious few, is a Nothern lad who still lives with his mum
and probably embraced middle age in his teens. His moral code of what cannot be done and said in
the presence of a lady, even a lady of the night, runs to several
volumes while what is permissible in Percy's mind probably doesn’t even
fill a page, and as for what he has done or said with a lady, a lady of
any time of day or night, as an actual lady, would probably not even
make a sentence. Percy is a sexual, social and emotional virgin so
when he ends up with a prostitute who starts to get her kit off as soon
as the pair enter her flat, he finds himself facing both nightmare and
fantasy bundled together in a revealing slip. How he got into his current predicamentis a bit
of a mystery, a bit hazy, but he remembers beer and his mate Ginger was
involved somewhere along the line. Ginger was his big mate in a group of
lads from Manchester down to London for a football match and they had
been celebrating, or rather just getting legless on Saturday night.
There had been a drinking club and a bet somewhere along the way, so
here he was. The virgin and the sex machine. Not that he admits his inexperience about . . .
it . . . and girls; after all he tells us he has had plenty of them.
There is little conviction in his bravado though and eventually he
admits: ”I know a lot of girls . . . well no, a lots of girls know me.” So while the trousered half of the audience
indulge in idle fantasy there is Percy uncomfortably tap dancing around
the merest hint of sex with an attractive woman - a staunch bachelor and
resolute virgin. The prostitute, Cyrenne, is as upmarket as they come; daughter of a brigadier with a surgeon brother . . . and yet no real explanation of how she has arrived at her chosen profession, if indeed she chose it. The tall tales are all a little too good to be true, and don’t quite tally but with a handy bed and a promise, even a paid for one, no one is going to delve too deeply.
The realty is we have two very lonely people
living a lie not so much to deceive others but to hide themselves from
the truth. Stourbridge born Alan Birch, well known in the
Midlands as Inspector Drake, gives a touching performance as the
socially clumsy, uncomfortable, worldly unwise Percy with a Northern
accent that never falters all evening. You can feel his embarrassment, fear,
frustration, desires, discomfort and every emotion known particularly to
man coursing through his mind and loins while, throughout it all, his
trousers remain firmly in place. Catherine Manford is the cause of his discomfort;
and in the small confines of the Garrick studio, manages to attract the
undivided attention of not only Percy but most of the men in the
audience. She takes Cyrenne out of the tart with a heart
territory to make her a real person, someone we can care about and have
feelings for beyond her obvious sensual charms. There are holes a mile
wide in her story of wealth and family but these only serve to intrigue
rather than condemn her as a liar. When angry brother Ricard, played by Paolo Allen,
arrives we start to see the real Cyrenne and feel for her even more. Allen, incidentally is reprising the role he
first played in 1987 in what was the first production of Opus Theatre
Company. In that inaugural performance the director of this play, Gerry
Hinks, played Percy and the company’s treasurer and wardrobe mistress
was Cyrenne. Ricard is a scene setter, throwing out Percy then
knocking down the walls so carefully built by his sister who is forced
into not only confronting her past but revealing more than even Ricard
knew. Left alone and in tears, that could have been the
end, until Percy returns, having forgotten his rattle and as he sobers
up, and all the romancing, a good Northern word, falls apart as reality
comes home to roost, the pair, with all their barricades breached start
to find they actually have feelings for each other. Shrewsbury born Charles Dyer's play was first
performed in 1962 and has to be taken in that context; £30 for a week’s
holiday in Morecambe and a fiver for a night with a prostitute – not
that I would know the going rate mind you – seems awfully out of date
and it is a tribute to both the writing and Hink’s directing that it is
a play of its time rather than just dated. Percy’s puritanical streak would have long been
wiped out, if it had ever been given life, had he been around these days
but before the sexual revolution of the 60s there were still those who
had not moved on much beyond stockings on piano legs and had an
innocence of all things carnal strong enough to threaten the
continuation of the human race. It may seem old fashioned now but seen in the
perspective its own time it is a touching and at times very funny tale
of lonely people on opposite sides of a sexual divide – and an enjoyable
evening’s entertainment. To 18-10-14 Roger Clarke
16-10-14 The tour continue with: Thur 23 Oct Prince of Wales Theatre, Cannock, 01543 578762, http://www.wlct.org/cannock/theatre/, Sat 1 November, Moreton Village
Hall, Newport, Shropshire
|
|
Contents page Lichfield Garrick Reviews A-Z Reviews by Theatre Tweet |
|
|