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Review by Paul Nelson
ALAN
Ayckbourn's play Bedroom Farce is not a farce at all; the characters
are far too believable.
Rather it is a play on words, a pun, a verbal joke. It deals with the ludicrous
idea of what we mean by bedroom and what should happen there.
Naturally we sleep there, but we also use it as a sick ward, a confessional,
a clandestine snack bar and so on, and in one of the most satisfying of Ayckbourn's
plays - you may in the past have gathered I am not generally a fan - the author
explores more avenues on the theme than you would think possible.
The bedroom of the title is actually three separate places. The bedroom of
Ernest and Delia, parents of Trevor, the bedroom of Nick and Jan, Jan having
been a former sweetheart of Trevor, and the bedroom of Kate and Malcolm who
are throwing a party.
There are complications, naturally. Ernest and Delia are going out for dinner,
and Nick is confined to his bed with a slipped disc and is in agony. Jan decides
to go to the party without him, and then there is Susannah.
Susannah is Trevor's wife and to say that she is neurotic and that the pair
has an unstable relationship would be unfair to put it mildly. Their marriage
is stormy, violent, utterly selfish and preposterous.
Jan leaves her ailing husband insisting she is only going to stay for 10 minutes.
Susannah and Trevor arrive at the party, inviting them in the first place
was an obvious mistake, with Susannah on the verge of hysteria and Trevor
on the verge of killing her.
The party is wrecked when the full force of the pent up storm between the
two is unleashed, and results in Jan going home having briefly weakened and
allowed Trevor to kiss her, chastely as it turned out but witnessed by Susannah
and Trevor and Susannah getting to the point of actually trying to murder
each other.
Susannah goes to Trevor's parents for advice and comfort, Trevor goes to Jan
and Nick's to explain about the kissing incident and Malcolm, left with the
wreckage of the party, embarks on a DIY assembly kit, a present for Kate,
in the middle of the fateful night.
In short, no one is going to use his or her bedroom for sleep.
There are more convolutions to this plot, and the less tenable are completely
swallowed by the audience through the sleek playing of the cast.
Naturally, the elder statespersons of comedy take precedence and Richard Briers
and June Whitfield as Ernest and Delia play their scenes with their wealth
of technique and hard won audience affection to enormous effect.
Faced with this you would expect the younger members of the cast to quail,
but not so. There is not a single performance that is anything but complementary
and the evening can therefore be judged a hit. The situations are funny, the
cast are funny, and the dialogue at times is sparklingly funny.
The director and designer have triumphed over the difficulties of having three
separate bedrooms on the stage at once and apart from some oddly obscuring
lighting effects (I was sitting quite near the stage in the stalls) I found
little about which to complain.
I fully expect the play to run for as long as the cast will it so to do.
Bedroom Farce by Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by Loveday Ingram, Designed
by Lez Brotherston, Lighting designed by Paul Pyant, Sound designed by John
Owens for Aura. WITH: Richard Briers (Ernest), June Whitfield (Delia), Nigel
Lindsay (Nick), Samantha Spiro (Jan), Jasper Britton (Malcolm), Suzy Aitchison
(Kate), Jason Watkins (Trevor), Rose Keegan (Susannah). Produced by Michael
Codron and Lee Dean in association with Mark Bentley at the Aldwych Theatre,
Aldwych, London WC2.
For further details about the Aldwych, click here
