MY WONDERFUL DAY
October 26, 2009
Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until November 1, 2009, then New York
SEX, suppressed feelings, hidden agendas – the stock in trade of Alan Ayckbourn’s painfully comic plays are all here for the viewer’s consumption in the world premiere of his latest. The new twist is that it’s all seen through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl.
Winnie has been allowed by her mum Laverne to accompany her to her cleaning job at the home of businessman Kevin. She’s writing a school essay entitled My Wonderful Day, and decides to record the day she sees, as it unfolds.
In typical Ayckbourn fashion, this means the child is exposed variously to extra-marital shenanigans, ignominious failure and relationship strife, all the while taking assiduous notes for her school project.
Directed by Sir Alan himself, the central conceit works brilliantly. Laverne is hauled off to hospital part-way through proceedings to give birth to Laverne’s baby brother, leaving her in the decidedly dodgy care of Kevin, his business partner Josh and his coquettish PA Tiffany, until Kevin’s cuckolded wife Paula arrives to blow the whole day apart.
Throw in some meticulously planned gags and pay-offs, a wonderfully misdirective device in which it appears to everyone else that Winnie speaks only French, and some stunning performances, and this production – bound immediately for Broadway before a UK tour next year – rarely puts a foot wrong.
A grown-up Ayesha Antoine is outstanding as the diminutive Winnie, catching all the mannerisms and naivete of the nine-year-old with wide-eyed innocence and simplistically trusting openness. It’s a remarkable portrayal of a cuttingly astute role and centres the whole in-the-round production with real confidence.
Terence Booth is an appropriately unlikeable Kevin, Ruth Gibson delightfully shallow as Tiffany, and Paul Kemp a marvellous study in dimwitted inarticulacy as Josh. With additional strong support from Petra Letang as Laverne and Alexandra Mathie as Paula, it’s a recipe for laughs and aching discomfort.
It’s yet another skewering study of the English in all their repressed fake politeness. What the Americans will make of it is anyone’s guess.
MARY STUART
May 25, 2009
Theatr Clwyd, Mold
CORRUPT politicians, anti-Establishment conspiracies and internal terrorist threats – no, not the latest David Hare at the National, but a brilliant new Mike Poulton translation of a 200-year-old history play.
Friedrich Schiller’s take on the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, is beautifully crafted as a poetic classic in this new version by Poulton, and is ravishingly rendered at Theatr Clwyd by resident artistic director Terry Hands.
With designer Max Jones, Hands presents a vast, open stage, skewed slightly and jutting powerfully out into the auditorium. In the first half the floor is virginal white, reinforcing the supposed innocence and naivete of England’s Queen Elizabeth; for the second, it becomes oppressively black as Elizabeth’s disingenuous scheming to bring about Mary’s death without attaching blame to herself draws the tragedy to its relentless climax.
The look and conceit of the production are faultless. But without its players they would be mere show.
Among a superb supporting cast, Vivienne Moore is a touching Hannah, companion and sometime nursemaid to Mary, and Owen Teale puts in a masterly performance of statesmanship and stature as Elizabeth’s chief adviser Lord Burghley.
But at the heart of this political drama is a personal vendetta between two queens – cousins who have never met leading nations at loggerheads – which ultimately amounts to a contest of pettiness over who’s the prettier. To carry off this multi-faceted, complex conflict takes actresses of depth, power and supreme technical control.
Marina Hands as Mary weaves a character of authority and vulnerability, whose railing against the injustices done to her is calmed with real credibility as she wins the moral battle, even as she loses her head.
But the towering performance of the night comes from Claire Price as Elizabeth, whose every moment on stage is as gripping, thrilling and mesmerising as the Virgin Queen’s presence must have demanded. Delivering Poulton’s magisterial language against Hands’s spare but stunning backdrop, Price marks herself out as one of the finest actresses of her generation.
Only Schiller can explain why the play is named after the other queen.
October 26, 2009
Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until November 1, 2009, then New York
SEX, suppressed feelings, hidden agendas – the stock in trade of Alan Ayckbourn’s painfully comic plays are all here for the viewer’s consumption in the world premiere of his latest. The new twist is that it’s all seen through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl.
Winnie has been allowed by her mum Laverne to accompany her to her cleaning job at the home of businessman Kevin. She’s writing a school essay entitled My Wonderful Day, and decides to record the day she sees, as it unfolds.
In typical Ayckbourn fashion, this means the child is exposed variously to extra-marital shenanigans, ignominious failure and relationship strife, all the while taking assiduous notes for her school project.
Directed by Sir Alan himself, the central conceit works brilliantly. Laverne is hauled off to hospital part-way through proceedings to give birth to Laverne’s baby brother, leaving her in the decidedly dodgy care of Kevin, his business partner Josh and his coquettish PA Tiffany, until Kevin’s cuckolded wife Paula arrives to blow the whole day apart.
Throw in some meticulously planned gags and pay-offs, a wonderfully misdirective device in which it appears to everyone else that Winnie speaks only French, and some stunning performances, and this production – bound immediately for Broadway before a UK tour next year – rarely puts a foot wrong.
A grown-up Ayesha Antoine is outstanding as the diminutive Winnie, catching all the mannerisms and naivete of the nine-year-old with wide-eyed innocence and simplistically trusting openness. It’s a remarkable portrayal of a cuttingly astute role and centres the whole in-the-round production with real confidence.
Terence Booth is an appropriately unlikeable Kevin, Ruth Gibson delightfully shallow as Tiffany, and Paul Kemp a marvellous study in dimwitted inarticulacy as Josh. With additional strong support from Petra Letang as Laverne and Alexandra Mathie as Paula, it’s a recipe for laughs and aching discomfort.
It’s yet another skewering study of the English in all their repressed fake politeness. What the Americans will make of it is anyone’s guess.
MARY STUART
May 25, 2009
Theatr Clwyd, Mold
CORRUPT politicians, anti-Establishment conspiracies and internal terrorist threats – no, not the latest David Hare at the National, but a brilliant new Mike Poulton translation of a 200-year-old history play.
Friedrich Schiller’s take on the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, is beautifully crafted as a poetic classic in this new version by Poulton, and is ravishingly rendered at Theatr Clwyd by resident artistic director Terry Hands.
With designer Max Jones, Hands presents a vast, open stage, skewed slightly and jutting powerfully out into the auditorium. In the first half the floor is virginal white, reinforcing the supposed innocence and naivete of England’s Queen Elizabeth; for the second, it becomes oppressively black as Elizabeth’s disingenuous scheming to bring about Mary’s death without attaching blame to herself draws the tragedy to its relentless climax.
The look and conceit of the production are faultless. But without its players they would be mere show.
Among a superb supporting cast, Vivienne Moore is a touching Hannah, companion and sometime nursemaid to Mary, and Owen Teale puts in a masterly performance of statesmanship and stature as Elizabeth’s chief adviser Lord Burghley.
But at the heart of this political drama is a personal vendetta between two queens – cousins who have never met leading nations at loggerheads – which ultimately amounts to a contest of pettiness over who’s the prettier. To carry off this multi-faceted, complex conflict takes actresses of depth, power and supreme technical control.
Marina Hands as Mary weaves a character of authority and vulnerability, whose railing against the injustices done to her is calmed with real credibility as she wins the moral battle, even as she loses her head.
But the towering performance of the night comes from Claire Price as Elizabeth, whose every moment on stage is as gripping, thrilling and mesmerising as the Virgin Queen’s presence must have demanded. Delivering Poulton’s magisterial language against Hands’s spare but stunning backdrop, Price marks herself out as one of the finest actresses of her generation.
Only Schiller can explain why the play is named after the other queen.
