Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
An outstanding performance at the Barn last night, as this week Sam Briggs and Katie Lambert bring us “Black Comedy” by Peter Shaffer. The life of young and nervous artist Brindsley takes an unexpected turn when the main fuse blows in his apartment on the very evening he has invited millionaire Bamberger and his fiancé Carol’s father Colonel Melket to visit (having also ‘borrowed’ antique lover Harold’s precious furniture without his consent). His house is plunged into darkness, and the truth about his life starts to come out, when a meddling mistress and neighbours decide to show up.
Dark is light, and light is dark. It is pitch black at the start of the play and lights come on as the fuse blows in the story, so what the audience witnesses is an inversion of the light the characters move around in. The lighting is essential in conveying the main idea behind the farce, as Shaffer’s aim is to show that what we can’t see, people’s minds, are often different from what they appear to be. The directors have successfully applied it by playing with the intensity of the main light, and the use of matches and lighters. Also, one can only be struck by the number of lamps hanging from the ceiling and present amongst the audience! The set is richly decorated, depicting Brindsley bedroom and living room, which the audience feel they are sitting in. Costumes are kept pretty simple, which is good to give the play an ageless feel, that helps contemporary spectators relate even more to the situation.
Faithful to farce tradition, boisterous jokes, extravagance of the situation, spectacular falls and over-the-top behaviour were all present in this successful slapstick. The actors were all absolutely brilliant, and exposed the intensity of their characters’ struggles beautifully, provoking outbursts of laughter amongst the audience. Freddie Elletson and Edith Kirkwood form the perfect stereotyped couple, a spoiled debutante daddy’s girl and a nervous insecure artist, where Kirkwood’s deb quacks intensify Elletson’s restlessness, gearing up the comicality of the situation. Tom Crowley identifies superbly to barky Colonel Melket, and after a slow start Stephanie Bartlett delivers well as prissy middle class neighbour Miss Furnival.
Although the top quality of the cast makes it very hard to distinguish a best leading actor, for me Laura Horton, playing the mischievous rejected mistress Clea, and Sam Lawson the very camp Harold are definitely the ones to watch for. This is due to their presence on stage and ability to switch from well behaved correctness to mad fury for Lawson, or in the case of Horton from silent facial expression to the delivery of the very line that sum up the whole play brilliantly: “It is a very odd room isn’t it ? It’s like a magic dark room where everything happens the wrong way round.”
I had an excellent time watching the story unfold and judging by the explicit comments of my fellow spectators I was not alone. We even managed to forget all about the freezing fifteen minutes spent waiting outside for the doors to open, as the organisers were running a bit late. I highly recommend seeing the performance, it is not to be missed!
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