They do well by Bill Naughton in Bolton. The Octagon has a proud track record with the town’s king of kitchen-sink drama, from the pieces everyone knows – Alfie and Spring and Port Wine – to an autobiographical curiosity entitled Lighthearted Intercourse. Now incoming artistic director Elizabeth Newman opens her tenure with Naughton’s lighthearted look at the absence of intercourse, which was filmed in 1966.
The Family Way was conspicuous not so much for its sexual candour as its openness about the emotional strain of impotence. Newlyweds Arthur and Violet have been unable to consummate their relationship; partly due to a cruel practical joke that causes the bed to collapse, but mostly because they are living cheek-by-jowl with Arthur’s parents in the kind of worker’s cottage where everyone is aware of each other’s business.
The production isn’t the screen version of The Family Way but the play that inspired it, All in Good Time, which is dramatically stronger, as the action is entirely contained within the inhibiting confines of Arthur’s house. The point is wonderfully emphasised by Amanda Stoodley’s design, which drapes the interior in grey net curtains like a giant birdcage, alluding to the wedding gift of a pair of lovebirds, a species that bill and coo but fail to breed in captivity.
Harry Long’s hangdog Arthur is, in many ways, the antithesis of Alfie: a man so cripplingly unsure of his sexual prowess he is afraid to look any woman in the eye. As Violet, Jessica Baglow strikes the perfect balance between unlimited patience and mounting frustration. But the commanding presence is that of David Birrell as Ezra, Arthur’s dad, whose withering scorn is evidently at the root of his son’s withered performance. Newman’s production extends far beyond mere bedroom farce, but indicates that for those stranded on the flipside of sexual liberation, the permissive society was no fun at all.
- At the Octagon, Bolton, until 3 October. Box office: 01204 520661.
