Tom's Midnight Garden
Sutton Arts Theatre
****
Time. No one can tell us what it is, not
that we can understand, even Einstein tried. Time is of the moment and
the moment has always just passed, it can be remembered but is lost for
ever, or it is just about to arrive. Time exists only as . . . as now.
Or does it? In Philippa Pearce’s award-winning
classic children’s novel, the now and a whole world of thens manage to
exist side by side . . . moments of pasts and present at the same time,
all brought to the stage in this ambitious production.
The whole story depends upon the main
protagonists, Tom and Hatty. Tom has been despatched to his aunt and
uncle for the duration as younger brother Peter has contracted measles.
It’s not easy to play a 12-year-old, that gawky age between child and
teen, especially cooped up, quarantined in an upstairs flat with no
garden and nothing to do, but Finley Rowland manages it well.
The house is a once splendid Victorian mansion in
Cambridgeshire, converted to flats and a little old fashioned and run
down, its extensive gardens down to the River Great Ouse sold off for
housing years ago.
Tom, not allowed outside while he may be
contagious, fills his time writing to brother Peter, played by Peter
Barker, with the story relayed in their BAR letters (burn after
reading!!!). From resenting being uprooted to avoid catching measles and
wanting to go home we slowly see Tom becoming reluctant to return home,
wanting to stay longer in the lifeless, dull flat with the kindly, but
hardly fun aunt and uncle. The reason? Hatty and the angel clock with
its strange inscription, “Time No Longer”.
The novel, and play, are set, well at least some
of the time, in the 1950s when the book was written (1958) while Hatty
is set . . . now that would be telling.
The adventure starts at midnight, the clue being
in the title, when Tom, struggling to sleep in a strange room in a
strange bed hears the long case grandfather clock in the hall strike 13.
Even a 12-year-old in the 1950s knew there was no 13 o’clock.
So, he heads off to investigate and opening the
back door finds that instead of the tiny yard with dustbins, there is a
huge sunny garden – even though it is midnight remember in the . . .
let’s just say the now.
Finley
Rowland as the eponymous Tom
Intrigued, Tom ventures into . . . his midnight
garden where he meets Hatty in a wonderful performance from Gracie
Reynolds. We learn Hatty is an orphan, a charity case, taken in by her
less than friendly Aunt Grace, a lovely grumpy effort from Kathryn
Vance, who is happy to blame Hatty for anything she can. She is also the
butt of peevish games by her cousins Edgar, a role shared by Ethan Jones
and Frankie Donohoe, Hubert in the shape of Samuel McCormack and James,
played by Kian Haden, the only one who ever showed her any kindness.
Amelia Ryall gives us the very young Hatty, the
tiny tot who has lost her parents with only a doll to remind her of
them, and then Gracie takes over. She has to give us many Hattys, from
the young girl playing childish games, to the teenager, the young woman,
the bride to be, all jumbled backwards and forwards on Tom’s visits.
The changes are subtle, after all it is the same
girl, but they are there all the same, from the childish chasing games,
through apple scrumping, to the beginnings of romance . . . a bit
confusing to have McCormack as Hubert morphing into McCormack as would
be suitor Barty but in worm holes and time slips anything could be
possible.
Hatty is the only one who can see Tom, her and
Abel, the Godfearing gardener, played by Jerome Pinnock-Glasgow. Abel
studiously ignores Tom until he has to acknowledge him, perhaps seeing
him as an interloper. He looks out for Hatty and protects her when he
can and, don’t tell Aunt Gwen, is sweet on the maid, Susan, played by
Evie Rice, who is also the puppeteer for the family collie, Pincher.
The house, in fictional Castleford, is close to
Ely and in one harsh winter the river froze over and Hatty and her
cousins skate down to the cathedral city in a well-choreographed skating
scene where Hatty ends up riding home with Barty in his gig. Skating
also gives Tom a chance to marry his now and Hatty’s then together in
the same moment, past and present defying logic and merged into the same
time.
From the front cover by Susan Einzig of the
first edition in 1958
Meanwhile, in the . . . now world, if there is
such a thing in the magic of theatre, we have Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen,
a homely, kindly couple, Alan, played by Mark Nattrass is quite strict
when it comes to bed and bedtimes, children sleep when they are told
being a fact of his life, but quite relaxed the rest of the time. He’s
an easy-going sort, although you can’t see him taking Tom for a
kickabout in the park . . . he’s not that sort of uncle, while Becky
Easen is an uncomplicated aunt, she bakes cakes, cooks delicious meals,
lots of them, and worries that Tom has to get everything she thinks he
needs.
Then there is the quiet and reserved Mrs
Bartholomew, owner of the house and Alan and Gwen’s landlady. She keeps
herself to herself, doesn’t like noise at night and winds the communal
grandfather clock religiously. It is a silent performance from Valerie
Tomlinson as the sort of landlady you would prefer not to be living in
the flat above you . . .
Yet it is Tom’s “apology” to Mrs Bartholomew for
the kerfuffle the night before his leaving that puts the play into
perspective in a strangely moving and poignant scene. The final moments
are not confined to just the play. They highlight the themes the novel
explores, the concepts of time, of memory and the passage and loss of
childhood. That word again. Time. We live it in hope for the future,
live for now, and live in memory for time past and, perhaps in stepping
through a hole in time, we can even live in someone else’s memories . .
. only time will tall.
Sutton Arts is a black box theatre, the
definition of wysiwyg. There are no flies and no wings and I am often in
awe at the ingenuity and invention of the remarkable sets, usually
designed by Mark Nattrass, that are created time after time, hiding and
overcoming the physical limitations
The sets usually enhance productions, but here
the set is more of a millstone, which is not to say it isn’t brilliantly
conceived but it ends up dominating and at times overpowering the stage.
The garden set is wonderful, complete with a
greenhouse and there are some clever effects with Tom appearing to walk
through a glass greenhouse door and his own bedroom door, but the set is
like the layers of an onion with hinged walls constantly folded out and
pushed back flat to give us the hall and Tom’s bedroom, then a dining
room, then a drawing room, Mrs Bartholomew’s flat and with everything
pushed aside the lovely garden set.
It is clever, technically outstanding, but with
scenes changing over and over, sometimes after just a few words, the
constant changing kills the pace stone dead, managing to make time stand
still. Somehow it needs to find some real urgency to let what is an
otherwise good production flow.
Directed by Louise Farmer, Tom’s garden will find
time at Sutton Arts to 29-03-25.
Roger Clarke
20-03-25
Sutton Arts
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