Thirty years on?
Another unusual but rewarding choice from LUTG, this time from a contemporary writer, over 300 years later than Sheridan's The Rivals, but also, arguably, a comedy of manners. It is more than that, as everything is from Alan Bennett. With macabre black humour including longings for death, marital jealousies and a dour Northern repression, it nonetheless makes for a good laugh in its 30th anniversary year. The first performance at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in May 1973 saw Alec Guinness, Patricia Hayes, Joan Sanderson, Andrew Sachs and John Bird in the original cast which was directed by Ronald Eyre.

This is a complex play with far more levels, themes and twists than even a good BBC sitcom, and does not fit neatly into any of the standard categories of comedy, such as farce, satire or light domestic trivia. With these added overtones, it is a complex play in both verse and prose about social conventions, manners, mortality and domestic misunderstandings, all set in the 1950s or 1960s.

"So this is what they mean by the permissive society'
Such a piece is not easy for experienced actors, let alone students, to carry off convincingly. Yet they did, with laudable conviction and style. And I can justify my praise since I, like Bennett, am from Leeds, and was born after him – thank you - in the early 1950s. So been there, done it, although I have seen very little Bennett on stage so far – yet.

The overall tone and ethos of the play is immediately set within the first few minutes. The opening lines are a reflection on death - ‘habeas corpus' is a legal term which demands the presence of someone in court, but literally means bring ‘forth the body'. And then "a cleaning lady', appears: "My name is Mrs Swabb (hoover, hoover, hoover) someone who comes in; and in all that passes, I represent ye working classes'.

She came and went through the audience and commented on the action in the manner of a Greek chorus. Except ‘she' was, with a delicious irony, played delightfully drolly by a hirsute and a stocky man, the able Peter Brookes. As it is difficult to upstage Pat Hayes, and I am sure that the playwright would have revelled in this added dimension to the already confused twists of the plot.

But don't let them worry you – it'll all come out in the wash, as Leeds mothers say. It is interesting to note that Bennett's plots bear more than a passing resemblance to those of Mozart's operas, equally outrageous but disciplined works of a wicked and polished craftsman.

"King Sex is a wayward monarch'
The lighting was one of the production's strengths, in that it focussed entirely on the action (which is difficult to stage in any case) and well underpinned the director's shrewd sense of period, place and pace. The continuing overt sexual references nicely complemented Bennett's long-standing fascination with the morbid, immortality, evil and class values, seen in broken dreams, disillusion and despair. Oh, and – er – sex, which "isn't something that happens overnight', according to the playwright.

As Bennett is an Oxbridge product of a similar stable to John Cleese and the rest of the ‘Pythons', it was satisfying to note that this production was aware of that particular way of playing the outrageous / obscene / surreal with utter conviction. Interwoven metaphysically with death, sex, of course, was a constant theme, with kit off, confusions and conspiracies everywhere. Sam Sugarman's fine direction showed us advanced, all-round skills in timing, diction and ensemble playing which are essential to such a play. These were further exemplified in the ‘intra-crural' singing and the final dance demanded in the text.

Along with the Sheridan, this was another brave choice. Quite right. It was beautifully executed. And I hardly mentioned the quadruple trouser-droppings …

Copyright © 9 February 2004 Michael Nunn

Follow these links for the seperate reviews of
The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
plus an overview of the season.

See also a preview of next term's LUTG season