UNCLE VANYA

UNCLE VANYA

Marlborough Dramatic Club at the Memorial Hall, Brentwood School

08.04.17

Michael Frayn's neat English version – Gambon its first Vanya, I believe – fits four acts into an audience-friendly couple of hours; even slicker in William Wells' production, with all the action set in the garden of Serebryakov's dacha.

The sombre mood is set before lights down – the samovar, Jean Morgan's nanna Marina knitting, Astrov reading. And at the end, the final moments of tearful optimism, as those left behind prepare to live out their wretched lives.

A compelling Vanya from Darren Hannant, his untidy idler contrasting with his smartly suited friend Dr Astrov [Gavin Leary]. Sara Thompson is the plain, unloved Sonya, her clumsy attempt at seduction one of several moving moments. The elegant Yelena, the professor's young second wife, is stylishly done by Juliette Bird. Good support from an equally stylish Margaret Corry as Vanya's mother, and Harry Morrison as the pathetic, desiccated Telegin.

This polished production has many telling moments: an impressive entrance through the audience for the “great scholar” [Keith Morgan] and his party, the carefully plotted trio that begins Act Three, the dramatic impetus sustained right through to Yelena's soliloquy, Vanya's rant, and his desperate disillusionment in a speech which he starts slumped with his back to the audience.

TOM AND VIV

TOM AND VIV

Marlborough Dramatic Club at Brentwood School

24.10.15

Fifty years after the poet T S Eliot died, the Marlborough have revived this fascinating piece by Michael Hastings, tracing the tragic story of his disastrous marriage to Vivienne Haig-Wood.

There are two dozen separate scenes, and Vernon Keeble-Watson's production does not entirely overcome the loss of impetus that implies. The use of music at the start is inspired, but alas not sustained through the many black-outs and scene changes.

None-the-less, it is a polished production, with superb period costumes, and a stunning central performance from Sara Thompson as Viv, the spirited governess who sets her cap at the poet from St Louis; her body, though, is prey to many infirmities, and her mind “goes into unreason”. Thompson carefully delineates her decline as the decades pass; a moving and entirely credible depiction.

Her Tom is Tim Murphy, who suggests the social and sexual ineptitude of the very private poet who spends much of his honeymoon alone under Eastbourne pier. Though I had imagined a more desiccated, more patrician character.

The sadly mismatched pair are surrounded by some excellent supporting actors. Shealagh White as Viv's despairing mother, brave face and refined tone. Craig Whitney – oddly reminiscent of Eliot facially – plays her affable but obtuse brother, and Vikki Luck is Louise, the girl from the pharmacy who remains loyally at the sick woman's side and also carries some of the narration.

There are many marvellous moments: Viv's larky, flaky approach to life and love – Gert and Daisy, Ethel Le Neve, chocolate – the soliloquy in St Peter's Church, the “ace” [offstage] party of decadence and dropped names from the literary set, the whoopee cushions. Some scenes are very short – a table is brought on for a bridge game lasting seconds, a splendid plate camera for a hasty portrait.

An intriguing exploration of the private life of a great artist, but chiefly an unflinching study of “moral insanity”, class conflict and the breakdown of a marriage. Hardly anything, though, is said about her claims to be the poet's muse, catalyst for the disillusion and despair of the Waste Land...

Improbable Fiction

Marlborough Theatre Group

Jim Hutchon was at Brentwood School

20thFebruary 2010

This latest Ayckbourn play is curious piece of work as there is little internal logic to the narrative. That said, coming from such a master pen, the result is a very funny and enjoyable scrutiny of personalities. The theme is a writer’s circle for writers who haven’t, and probably never will, finish their works. Chairman of the group (because he has the biggest house) is Arnold, played with slightly bemused efficiency by Martin Goldstone. Jess Bales is a forceful failed period romantic writer and farmer lesbian who gets some of the best of Ayckbourn’s acerbic humour, which she delivers with great comic timing. Children’s stories are the province of Grace Sims (Sheila Boar), and detective novels, the expertise of Vivvi, played with ebullience by Jackie Young. A withdrawn and hooded Clem is the sci-fi conspiracy expert, brought out in a darkly secret way by Graham Poultney. Brevis Winterton (Duncan Hopgood) is a blustering song writer with no lyrics and a weak bladder, and – sanest and most normal of all is the mother’s help, Ilsa, play by Louise Bridgeman.

After a typical Ayckbourn committee meeting of no consequence, but during which each of the authors gives an idea of their work in progress, the meeting breaks up. Then things kick off. For no apparent reason, the authors return as their inventions, and act out parts of their stories to the mystified Arnold. Ilsa becomes a murdering Victorian, Jess, a Jane Austen narrator, Brevis, an alien eliminator and – best transformation of all, Clem becomes an Edgar Wallace detective, with Vivvi as his ultra-sensitive bag carrier. There is further interchanging of roles, and it is clear that all the cast had a hugely enjoyable time chopping and changing. But all stayed strictly as convincing characters within whatever role they were playing, and despite lack of such things as plot or narrative drive, this was an evening of theatre to savour.