THE ENGLISH GAME
The game of cricket, I believe, embraces every quirky
aspect of English sporting behaviour. It is quite understandable,
therefore, to see why the rules to foreigners will always remain an unfathomable
mystery. Hence playwright Richard Bean has found a glorious scenario for
his play about a polyglot mixture of amateur enthusiasts.
Unlike footballers, cricketers can stay active for a lot of their lives making
teams a rich tapestry of old and extremely young players alike.
We
are introduced to a south
Slowly we meet the rest of the team and a few ancillary characters. There are 16
actors in the play – all male. In fact it is a very “blokey” play, opening
as it does a window on men’s behaviour when alone and not being given the once
over by the female sex. I think it’s clever of Richard Bean to manipulate so
many parts and let each one emerge with clarity and individual characteristics.
The
nearest we get to the game is with noises off and watching heads turn in unison
when a cricket ball soars overhead. Len and Will somehow form a lynchpin
for the story along with Len’s 13-year-old grandson Ruben (Jamie Samuel).
I
would describe “the English game” as a slice of life since it just gives us an
episode in the ongoing life of this cricket club. No serious conflict
builds up. The feeling is of a hot, hazy summer afternoon, stretching
endlessly, interrupted from time to time by various members going out to bat
under the bright sun. A tiny storm in a teacup blows up when Alan (Andrew
Frame) brings along a spanking new scoreboard that he has made. There are
complaints that the numbers are not visible enough. We see Alan’s dejected
figure stomping off only to return when the problem has been resolved.
This
play does not build to a climax; it rather meanders along at the same pace
throughout. It gives one the feeling of peeping through a changing-room
window when not much is happening. There is plenty of locker-room humour,
however, as well as scope for the actors who all enjoy well-written parts.
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Arnaud Theatre Reviews
SPIES
Michael Frayn is a writer of novels and plays; and in “Spies” we have a play from one of his best selling books of that title, adapted by Daniel Jamieson. The novel itself is written in the first person, a fact that presents a difficulty on stage. This is overcome by using a narrator who follows the main character around – an eleven-year-old boy named Stephen – shadowing him as he relives an episode from his own childhood.
The continuous changes of background to this tale are achieved by an ingeniously constructed stage set involving apertures that open and shut to reveal, or sometimes to indicate, various scenarios. The play revolves around Stephen (Benjamin Warren) who becomes friends with Keith (John-Paul Macleod), a neighbour and almost as old. Keith has the mentality of a prison guard, even at his tender age. We soon see why. His father, Mr Hayward played by Christian Flint, is a complete control freak who invents cruel punishments for his son under the guise of jocular blandishments. Very sinister, this!
The fascinating twists the story takes lead us to believe that a game the two boys play about being spies is merely child’s play. Things take a terrifying turn when Stephen accidentally witnesses the untimely death of an RAF officer who had deserted from his camp. The atmosphere pervading England in the 40s is cleverly evoked. Mrs Hayward (Jordan Whyte), Keith’s mother, has the slightly prissy demeanour possessed by many women of that period.
Her voice, for example, reminds one of the actresses in J.Arthur Rank’s “Charm School” who generally spoke with an accent that would be smiled at today and regarded as unnecessarily “posh”. Even her movements, with her swinging walk and coy cocking of her head whenever she talks to the boys, speak of another age. Her clothes and hair style have been carefully reproduced. What’s more, she cleverly gives the impression throughout of someone who could be having a steamy affair.
I would love to know what gave Michael Frayn the idea for “Spies”. Was it something to do with his early years, when children were permitted to roam with more freedom? The scenes portrayed in the play are all so vivid that I very much doubt if they could all have been just imagined by the author.
The two boys, although played by grown men, managed to give the impression of being harum-scarum youngsters, racing around and hiding in their hedgerow retreat while being stalked by Barbara (Cerianne Roberts), a highly irritating little girl very much like Violet Elizabeth in Richmal Crompton’s “Just William”.
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THE CLEAN HOUSE
Who would have ever believed that the really happy and fulfilled female character of a contemporary play would owe her beautiful quality of life to the fact that she adores housework? What a turnaround from recent decades when women as a rule put this kind of activity at the bottom of the list.
Sarah Ruhl’s bittersweet comedy takes us into the household of a successful doctor called Lane, played by Patricia Hodge. Married to an equally successful surgeon Charles (Oliver Cotton) she resides in totally white surroundings – the sofa, the carpet, the furniture and all her clothes are white, or off-white. To keep everything spotlessly clean she employs Matilde (Natalia Tena), a girl in her twenties from Brazil.
This actress gives a powerfully haunting performance; and it is difficult to believe that she is not a native Portuguese-speaking Brazilian - the Dialect Coach, Majella Hurley, has done a marvellous job. Natalia brings a mournfulness to the part which compliments the fact that as Matilde she spends her whole time thinking up jokes. In fact, having studied humour at university in Brazil, she is trying to follow her parents’ example of non-stop joke telling. A clever little vignette shows the duo at a café table that slides tantalisingly across the back the stage. The mention of housework, however, only serves to make the doctor very depressed.
Lane’s sister, Virginia (Joanna McCallum), on the other hand, simply loves any form of housework; and she and Matilde agree to swap places leaving the latter free to compose jokes. The whole comedy has an air of a sophisticated children’s story about it. Painted with very broad brush strokes this wacky story goes off at a tangent to involve Charles who has fallen in love with the extremely colourful Ana, portrayed by Eleanor Bron. In spite of the tricky situation Ana contrives to cast her spell over the other three women. Having first found out she’s dying of cancer she moves in with them while the unfortunate Charles tramps around Alaska in search of a special tree he intends to bring back because of its medicinal properties.
All this in spite of first having to learn to fly a plane large enough to transport the said tree! In the meantime, Matilde kills off Ana by relating one of her most recent jokes. Just as Ana expires in a paroxysm of mirth Charles staggers in carrying his tree. Do you laugh? Or do you cry? Playwright Sarah Ruhl deserves top marks for originality. She truly possesses a unique style – rather in the manner of the Italian farceur, Dario Fo.
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A TRIP TO
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
(1751-1816) had close associations with this part of the world having lived at
the peak of his success as a writer in stately glamour at the country mansion,
Polesden Lacey, near Dorking in
I say “fittingly” because
Ayckbourn has a permanent base in
The play has been cleverly directed by the author/adaptor. We are left in no doubt about which century we have slipped into, not only because of the costumes but by the way the various characters move and their mode of speech. We who think the manner in which people spoke in the 40s was the same as today will be jolted out of their minds when they hear characters exclaim, for instance, phrases such as “Wizard Prang!” – a much favoured expletive of RAF personnel in WWII. Likewise, 18th C characters express themselves with suitably flowery language. The present century assaults us with the stage being invaded by men with mobile ‘phones glued to their ears!
The cast of 15 cope valiantly while playing no less
than 29 parts between them. There are some amazingly quick changes.
I dread to think of the ensuing mayhem backstage!
Outstanding performances come
from Katie Foster-Barnes who plays three different but very lively young women:
and Dominic Hecht and Adrian McLoughlin who appear as the manipulating hotel
staff throughout, keeping all the balls in the air and acting as a useful link
between scenes.
I must mention Terence Booth
who gives three very funny and convincing performances with amazing body
language – his long legs in particular being employed to express a multiplicity
of reactions. His rendering in Act I of a
There are lots of laughs in
the play that rolls along at a spanking pace which befits a hilarious romp such
as this. Heaven knows how it was all achieved. Technically it must be one of the
most complicated shows to stage.
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