Tonight At 8.30 Part 2 – Chichester (Review)
Review by David Munro
(Hands Across The Sea – Fumed Oak – Shadow Play)
THIS is the second series of Coward plays from the omnibus Tonight At 8.30 which Coward wrote for himself and Gertrude Lawrence to display their versatility and to alleviate the boredom of appearing in the same part every night.
As with Part 1 the director, Lucy Bailey, has sandwiched a serious play between two more frivolous ones and, as in Part 1, she has two hits and a miss.
Hands Across The Sea
This takes place in the drawing room of Lady Maureen Gilpin, who has asked a husband and wife she met in her travels to come in for a drink as she feels she owes them hospitality.
She rings her husband and friends to come round to help her entertain them. When the couple arrive, they are virtually ignored by the rest and the whole evening is punctuated by intrusive telephone calls which add to the isolation of the hapless pair.
Eventually it turns out they are not the pair expected but another husband and wife who were invited casually to drop in when they were in London.
Very slight, and in parts unpleasant, this is a little piece which depends on the comedic, even farcical skills of the cast, to succeed and in this respect Miss Bailey is well served.
Josefina Gabrielle once again plays the Lawrence part and proves yet again she is a skilled comedienne. Alexander Hanson similarly assumes the Coward part, which in this piece is a very minor one, Peter Moreton, as his sidekick, and Tamsin Griffin and Richard Hansell, as the accommodating friends, make the most of their moments and Nigel Anthony and Susan Wooldridge were effective as the put- upon guests.
The result was a very funny three quarters of an hour even if the humour may have been a little broader than Coward intended.
Fumed Oak
Coward here “borrows” very heavily from Somerset Maugham’s The Breadwinner with the plot of the father who leaves his family for a new life after a lifetime of being unappreciated in his own home.
In Fumed Oak, though, it’s a working class family rather than Maugham’s upper class one and the action is encapsulated into two short scenes rather than three acts thereby, in my view, being more effective.
A cast of four – Madeleine Worrall, Josefina Gabrielle, Susan Wooldridge and Alexander Hanson – play respectively the tiresome schoolgirl daughter, the shrewish wife, the over bearing mother-in–law and the defecting father.
They are all very good but Alexander Hanson once again proves, as he did in The Astonished Heart, what a first class and versatile actor he is. The scene where he kicks over the traces and gives the others a piece of his mind was not only funny but he gave it a real depth of feeling as well, which for me gave a very genuine edge to husband/father’s reason for going and why he had maintained his placid façade up until now. It was a superb piece of acting worthy of a better play.
Josefina Gabrielle obliterated all memories of her upper class bitch in Hands Across The Sea with a stinging portrayal of a selfish, self-centred woman who has tricked a man into marriage, as to have a husband was a required part of her household possessions; another memorable performance and a worthy foil to Alexander Hanson.
Susan Wooldridge and Madeleine Worrall did what they could with their rather cardboard characters but did it well and formed a worthy frame for the principals explosive performances; as with The Astonished Heart the performances in Fumed Oak are worth the trip to Chichester
Shadow Play
I wish I could say the same about Shadow Play but I can’t. Although in the principal roles Alexander Hanson and Josefina Gabrielle were as excellent as always, the rest of the cast likewise, somehow the play as a whole missed it.
The theme of the play is about the breakdown and resuscitation of a marriage; Simon Gayforth asks his wife for a divorce, she reacts badly, takes sleeping pills and he realises he still wants her after all.
Interspersed in these events are time shifts where Simon and Victoria relive their courtship, honeymoon and other moments of their life together.
These scenes themselves are inter-cut with scenes in the present so that, without a strong directorial hand, it can all get a bit confusing and this to me is what happened. Everything was rushed along and there was never any real definition between memory and reality.
Coward called it a musical fantasy, which it certainly wasn’t. The songs, which were supposed to be highlights of the play, were for the most part skimpily staged and /or cut emphasising the fantasy which failed. A pity, for as I have said the performances were good and had the plot been given a director with more finesse, could have been very effective indeed.
There you are; the two evenings of Tonight at 8.30 are, like the curate’s egg, good in parts but, as the curate said, “very enjoyable”. I would like to have seen Miss Gabrielle and Mr Hanson perform what has now become the most famous of the 10 plays (yes, there were ten but Star Chamber only lasted one performance) Still Life (Brief Encounter to you!) as I’m sure it would be a memorable event. But clearly not to be – one can wish though!
Tonight At 8.30 Part 2 – Shadow Play three playlets, words and music by Noel Coward.
Directed by Lucy Bailey.
Designer – Dick Bird.
Lighting – Giuseppi Di Lorio.
Sound – Nick Lidster.
Choreography – Leah Hausman.
Musical Director – Mathew Scott.
CAST: Alexander Hanson; Josefina Gabrielle; Jonathan Bond; Peter Moreton; Nigel Anthony; Susan Wooldridge; Madeleine Worrall; Tamzin Griffin; Richard Hansell.
Chichester Festival Theatre, Oaklands Park, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 6AP.
July 13 – September 2, 2006.
(In repertory with Part 1)
Evenings: 7.45pm/Mat. Weds. & Sat. 2.15pm.
Box Office: 01234 781312.