Ooh, it's a right old trip down memory lane, Maisie. Two plays in one evening. In the first they eat potted shrimp and in the second they wear satin flares and sing Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights to warm their voices up.
This double bill combines two stalwarts of British theatre of the late 70s and 80s, Alan Ayckbourn and Victoria Wood. You don't hear so much about Alan Ayckbourn these days, but back then he was much loved for his ability to tweak one-off theatrical tricks into whole plays. In Between Mouthfuls, one of the five scenes that made up a longer play, Confusions (written in 1976), the audience hears the conversations held by two unhappy couples in a restaurant through the ears of the waiter: as he moves away from one table, that couple's voices fade out, as he moves towards the other . . . you get the picture. It's quite enjoyable at times, but without the other four parts, perhaps can't hold a whole act up. Besides, the cast are good, but not really strong enough to keep it all flowing.
The problem is that it's the same cast for the second half of the evening. Talent was Victoria Wood's first play, written in 1978, winning her several awards, including the Pye Television award for most promising writer. It also brought her together with Julie Walters for the first time, and that pairing, without doubt, produced some of the best comedy around. That was because they were both very funny women, with fine comic timing, mobile, odd faces, and attitudes to comedy that came from beyond the M25, always a good thing.
Well, it's easy to imagine that in the hands of Wood and Walters this play, set in the dressing room of a cabaret club, where Julie is waiting to take part in a talent competition and has brought her doleful friend Maureen to support her, would have been fresh and funny. Wood's quick ear for the way women talk, and some of her songs, would be great if handled really well. It still is funny at moments, and Samantha Seager and Rachel Lumberg try hard to live up to their forebears. It's just that Talent was the first play by someone who was still feeling her way (and, in the end, made her name through her one-woman shows, not her plays, anyway). Do like those white satin flares, though . . .
Until 28 August. Tel: 01206 573948
