Amanda Abbington’s new show is heavily indebted to Noël Coward’s Hay Fever.Coward’s early play follows the tribulations of the superficial Bliss family and at first it was rejected by producers because it lacked action or incident. The oddly titled show, (This is not a) Happy Room, opens on the eve of a family wedding. Disaster strikes when the groom dies in a car cash and the nuptials are hastily transformed into a funeral. (Don’t ask how the dead body was released for burial so quickly.)
Abbington plays Esther Henderson, a careless matriarch, who walked out on her children when they were small and left her firstborn, Laura, in charge of the parenting duties. Laura struggled to raise the youngsters properly and she now feels responsible for their wonky personalities. The youngest, Elle, aged 29, is an anorexic film star whose career is on the slide. Simon is a jobless, attention-seeking hypochondriac, aged 35, who wears sunglasses indoors and uses a walking stick to gain sympathy. Laura meanwhile is a hot-shot human rights lawyer who despises migrants and can’t stand her dull, clingy husband even though he worships her. ‘I say your name constantly when you’re not around,’ he simpers, ‘just so that there’ll be more of you in the world.’ He and Laura have a newborn baby, which Simon and Elle pointedly ignore because they want Laura’s attention all to themselves.
Everyone in this slow-burning play is a bothersome, superficial victim mired in the competitive atmosphere of their gruesome childhood. Their bitter, sneering dialogue suits their prickly personalities. And yet their shared affection is rather touching. They come alive in each others’ company and they use insults and putdowns to conceal the current of love that keeps them united.
If you met them in real life, you’d run a mile. But in the theatre you don’t risk exposure to whatever contagion affects them. And as you get used to the emotional rhythm of their discourse, you find yourself enjoying the brutal slap-downs and the caustic back-chat. You begin to wish that your relatives were as sparky, observant and quick-witted as this crew of smart alecks. By the end of the play, you’re mentally drafting a letter to the author demanding a sequel.
The Hendersons are the most revolting family of egoists you’ll ever fall in love with. Abbington shines as the truant mother who smilingly greets her children as ‘ugly people’. This crushing remark goes unnoticed because it fits in with the family aesthetic of cutting and aggressive banter. Esther is capable of sharing wisdom, too. She despises therapy as a diversionary tactic that prevents us from enjoying the present. ‘Either you’re thinking about the past, which is depression. Or you’re thinking about the future, which is anxiety.’ Live in the moment,
she says.
The play runs without an interval, which is usually a sign of poor artistry. And it has no central character. But the dramatist, Rosie Day (who also plays Elle), is an expert craftswoman. The star of the show, as with Hay Fever, is the Henderson family itself. Some will loathe them on sight. Some will fail to see the point of them, just as some people are baffled by Jarvis Cocker’s popularity (an argument made by Esther). But many audiences will relish their wit. And no one can deny that the play’s closing line conveys one the great theatrical surprises of the year.
The play’s closing line conveys one the great theatrical surprises of the year
Murder, She Didn’t Write is an improvised mystery narrated by a queenly authoress named Agatha Crusty. She opens proceedings by calling the audience to attention and asking them to suggest minor adjustments to the plot. The basic storyline is a generic crime yarn that can easily be tailored to accommodate a bit of tinkering around the edges.
Preliminaries over, the fun begins. We’re in a remote country estate, Castle Blue, which is run by an elderly grandee whose family are sporadically affected by sudden death syndrome. Stock characters fill the stage. There’s a lisping French gardener, a bespectacled virgin, a cheery cockney and an upper-class seductress disguised as a schoolteacher.
Each character has a strong motive to kill each of the other characters – which is handy because the identity of the victim has to change from performance to performance, in accordance with the audience’s wishes.
What’s the result? A typical improv show. A lazy, meandering, error-prone dress rehearsal which is passed off as a professional performance. Every mistake, every botched cue, every bungled speech and every mistimed entrance is treated by the cast as an opportunity to lark about and invent new idiocies. And it works. Shows like this are hugely popular. Press night was packed with an adoring crowd who loved every minute of this rambling jape. But it’s not drama. This is street theatre done in a venue with a roof and a bar.
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