Aversion therapy

It’s been a while, I have to say, but last week I saw a show that thrilled me to the core. Trelawny of the Wells, the Donmar’s latest offering, is a tribute to the theatre written by actor-turned-writer Arthur Wing Pinero. A simple set-up. Gorgeous young luvvie, Rose Trelawny, has forsaken the greasepaint to marry a greaseball called Arthur Gower. He’s loaded. Rosie’s actor chums treat her to a farewell bash complete with antique gags, tuneless ditties, snatches from half-remembered dramas and long-winded orations consisting entirely of in-jokes. (You’ll have spotted that this is not the show that thrilled me to the core.) At one point, a tragedian holds a baguette over his head and scuffs the inner pith with a fork to create a shower of confetti while he shouts, ‘Snowstorm! Snowstorm!’ This is the scene’s most gripping moment.

Next we follow Rose as she moves in with Arthur’s priggish elderly relatives. Sir William Gower and his partially mummified sister, Trafalgar, enforce an atmosphere of cheerless solemnity in their chocolate-coloured drawing-room. A hundred years ago these jingoistic nuisances were probably hilarious. Not any more. The contrast between vivacious Rose and her surly in-laws is presented with sledgehammer subtlety and the achingly dull scene gropes towards two feeble climaxes. First, a game of whist is violently disrupted, which sends the creaky old Gowers off to bed. Second, Rose’s acting friends invade the house and the Gowers wake up again — the last thing anyone wanted — and chase the luvvies away. In the final act we return to the theatre where a new play is being co-directed by a gifted young writer. His efforts are disrupted by a stupid, noisy Kerryman whose charmless shrieking is a slur on Ireland’s finest county.