UNIVERSAL , INTIMATE, TRUE
Sometimes it’s more than worth it to flog irritably through a London strike day, make it without even time for a drink but find something plain wonderful. And that is not only because Katie Greenall’s production invites audiences to enter the pub set fifteen minutes early, with Olivia Forrest’s Charlene idly playing darts, and be invited by the barman Valentine to have a go at the karaoke . On my night two stellar audience performances, one from a robust Britneyesque figure in a tutu, one a crooning duet of “Somethin’ stupid” by a pair who only just met in the bar). So far, fun: that essential theatrical determination to draw you into a world.
As they retire to general cheers begins one of the best new plays since Tom Wells’ The Kitchen Sink (also a Bush premiere) . Like that, Kit Withington’s family drama offers a gift of wisdom and humour from a sensitivity formed well north of Watford. It’s simple enough, though finally as serious about the human heart and conscience as an Arthur Miller. Here are five characters in ordinary lives, without pretension , opening depths of universal feeling, with five flawless performances . Frankie (Rowan Robinson) is back after nearly a year away in London, studying architecture, living with a southern boyfriend. Gradually we learn that she was alerted by Valentine at the bar because her father Dez (Deka Walmsley) is erratic . He’s wandering at night, banging the door, calling for the unseen Eileen, “oldest landlady in Britain” . Who is actually upstairs, and mentally out of it. The barman’s character, quietest and probably wisest of the lot, is evoked with extraordinary subtlety by Aaron Atnthony.
Frankie, uneasy, gradually has to decode what is going on. Her pet rabbit has vanished, Dez making weak excuses. He is doing odd things, falling asleep in too-hot baths, scrubbing his face with bath salts. You begin to suspect halfhearted self-harm beneath outbreaks of rage and unspoken depression. Frankie’s mother (Sophie Stanton) seems to be out or away a lot, with an unseen boyfriend. She tackles her, noticing her smart top and new way of “swinging her shoulders”, and learns why. The writing is beautiful here, compassionate: the author willing to extend hearing and understanding to even the most frustrating behaviour. Frankie reconnects with old friend Charlene – another wonderful performance – who scoffs at ‘That London’ and Frankie’s presumed metropolitan identity. She is given some great Victoria-Woodish lines and behaviours but is, in fact, moving on perfectly well with her life as a nursery-nurse, living at home and putting money in an ISA. And she’s sharp enough to round on Frankie’s half-indicated superiority by pointing out that the world doesn’t turn just for her, it goes on turning for them all.
Indeed the core theme is about that turning, moving on with life, or failing to. Mum Linda is trying to, but aggrieved when Frankie tries charity-shopping piles of childhood junk from her bedroom. We’ll gradually learn the reason for this, which also relates to Dez’s erratic behaviour, Charlene’s memories of how Frankie’s childhood was somehow different, even to invisible old Eileen. Oh, and the rabbit mystery resolves (nothing gruesome, fear not).
Everyday, everyguilt, everygrief; it all hangs together, powerful sadness and sudden absurdities, the power of sadnesses not spoken of , the way that losing one precious thing makes you cling on to things not precious at all. There’s family duty and capture, and the hunger to get some things straight before you can begin to step forward. The final scenes and use of Hazel Low’s set create, suddenly and still without pretension (even with a fine rabbit-revelation joke) something remarkable, pure theatre: a spiritual, baptismal visual metaphor. Go for the karaoke and the northern jokes if you will, but you’ll get that too. All in a hundred minutes.
bushtheatre.co.uk. to 16 May
Rating. 5
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