The more the merrier as director Blanche
McIntyre takes an ensemble approach to this, astoundingly, first full
UK revival of Noël Coward’s series of playlets since their 1936 London
première. Usually a selection is made from among the nine pieces
(Coward withdrew a tenth) and presented as a triple bill, but English
Touring Theatre and the Nuffield now enterprisingly offer a trio of
trios, presented in rep with a few all-day opportunities to collect the
entire set.
McIntyre is astute. In the absence of a star coupling to match the
original of Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, one pair of lead actors might
carry off a single three-pack but not the lot; it makes much more sense
to distribute main roles amongst the company (which also numbers nine).
Thus, on the bill labelled “Dinner”, Kirsty Besterman begins in
Ways And Means as one of a
fashionable but skint couple on the Riviera (imagine
Private Lives meets
Fun With Dick And Jane) before
stepping back to become the whingeing daughter of a termagant in the
(misogynistic) worm-finally-turns scene
Fumed Oak and the railway station
tea-room assistant in
Still Life…
the most famous of the series, subsequently expanded to become
Brief Encounter. Olivia Poulet, in
the same batch, plays the aforementioned battleaxe in
Fumed Oak but bookends this with
cameos as a long-suffering maid and the chattering friend who prevents
the central lovers from taking an intense farewell before that last
train out of Milford Junction.
Staging what are in effect nine separate plays calls for some modest
budgetary miracles. Robert Innes Hopkins’ stage design relies on the
same three flats in assorted configurations, and works with versatile
flair, despite making for a slightly low-rent fantasia in
Shadow Play, the final item in the
“Dancing” bill. This is one of several of the plays which break into
song (
Red Peppers, another of
the best-known, centres on a bickering vaudeville couple), a tactic
which this company does not always pull off as sparse arrangements
accentuate weak vocals. Nevertheless, McIntyre and her team (with Gyuri
Sarossy and Peter Singh also deserving particular mention) show off the
range of Coward’s writing, from bitchy wit through social satire to
near-overdone romance, with verve and aplomb. Coward’s
Relative Values, currently in the
West End, may be stuck in its bygone age, but even in tails
Tonight At 8:30 feels surprisingly
often like tonight.
Written for the Financial
Times.