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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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Meeting a challenge head on Brief Encounter
Dudley Little Theatre
Netherton Arts Centre
****
EVERY so often an amateur company can surprise
you, in a good
way, he added quickly,
and last night it was Dudley Little Theatre with their stage version of
Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter. This is
the Emma Rice, 2008
Kneehigh Theatre version of
Coward’s story of stifled love and
is a multi-media
production with a script mixing David Lean’s iconic 1945 film
with the play that it
was based on,
Still Life,
with songs and film sequences thrown in for good measure. It it
not an easy choice for an amateur company, particularly one not known
for musicals – or film making for that matter
- but DLT rose to the challenge admirably with their own filmed
sequences – and amusing titles – all in period black and white on
the big screen to interact with the live drama. Coward never seemed to do
ordinary people, despite, or perhaps because of that being the life he
had come from. There are always some sexual undercurrents, some illicit
pleasure or guilty secret in his relationships,
with adultery, or the hint of it a favourite theme.
In Brief Encounter it
is a love affair between couple who are married
but unfortunately not to each other. And there
is the rub, the doomed relationship stifled by respectable middle class
convention is contrasted by the more working class couplings in the
station tea room between a waitress and
While the doctor and his
respectable married woman talk about it and load on the angst, the
couples from the lower orders have no inhibitions and are at it like
rabbits. The whole play centres around
middle class suburban housewife Laura Jesson, played with a beautifully
clipped period accent by Rebecca Clee, and Dr Alec Harvey, with a
similar period feel in voice and manner from film maker Tony Stamp.
They give an excellent performance in the
Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson pairing of the film. Rebecca Clee as Laura and Tony Stamp as Alec, lost in a love affair with nowhere to go The couple
are utterly believable as unlikely middle aged
lovers, no dark horses here. We don’t know of the
doc’s marital life although he never seems to despair of it and as for
Laura’s . . . boring rather than loveless would be the first thought
having met her husband Fred, Mr Tedium himself, played in the Mogadon
style of acting by Phil Sheffield, who also turns up as a bolshie
soldier looking for a drink after hours, a lovelorn soldier singing an
ironic song, and, along with an ensemble of six, playing any other part
that needs filling from tea shop customers to passers by. Meanwhile around their
furtive, shall-we-shan’t-we affair , the
station tea rooms are bubbling away with
sexual chemistry with the pretentious Myrtle Baggot in charge, played
with a certain hoity-toity air by Jackie Bevan - think Are You Being
Served?’s Mrs Slocum running a cafe - who
is being wooed with licentious enthusiasm by
the station ticket inspector Albert Godbey, played wonderfully lustfully
by John Lucock. Then there is love’s young
bloom with Myrtle’s assistant in the tearoom Beryl, played with a lovely
period innocence by Jane Williams and Stanley, the mobile confectionary
seller, who spends his life trying to find time alone with her. Its all innocent fun, slap and
tickle included, well slap at least, but they are all unmarried and free
to carry on as they please, in contrast to our
repressed, married would-be lovers from the
suburbs, whose Although it is hardly a
musical there are plenty of Noel Coward songs included such as I’ll
See You Again, A Room with a view, Go Slow Johnny, Mad About The Boy
and Cole Porter’s Begin the Beguine thrown in for good measure
all accompanied by Robin Baggot and Chris Handley. The songs and
music strangely lighten the play rather then become a
distraction. A flexible set gave us the
essential tearooms, a restaurant and the Jessons’ home as well as Alec’s
friend Stephen’s flat (Phil Sheffield again) where an intimate
assignation was interrupted, while the filmed
sequences again had a 1930s look about them – the play is set in 1938 or
so – and were very professionally done. Producer and director Lyndsey-Ann
Parker and Frank Martino have managed to keep up a good pace and
Caroline Mulhall lit the set well, particularly with the passing express
trains. DLT also managed to find some
authentic period costumes to give a little more authenticity to what is
a very satisfying and imaginative production. To 15-03-14.
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confectionery
seller and the tea room manageress and the randy ticket inspector.