Performed
at This wonderful comedy takes place over a forty-eight hour period at the home of Stephen Febble and his patient wife Virginia. When he learns that the family, including their precocious teenager and the dog, are coming to visit, the weekend ahead seems bad enough for Stephen. But a series of revelations about his family, friends and the road to Thorpeness, together with an uninvited guest at dinner are all too much for Stephen who resorts, as always, to alcohol and sarcasm in equally generous measure. This is a glorious examination
of family values which is not only hugely funny but also at times
very sad.
Review by Sue Dupont: Some excellent casting
in this funny play (with the darker overtones) and how well the pace
developed into a sharp production. A good set again but now to be
expected. In central position as Stephen, and with probably over 60%
of the dialogue throughout, and with the Samuel French character description
of cantankerous, misanthropic, miserable and world-weary, in a touch
of the Victor Meldrew’s, Martin Drummond played a tour de force
in a role to be relished with the twists and turns, the relationships,
the timing and the comedy pointing, but with his wife Virginia, played
excellently by Georgette Vale, we did see the softer and vulnerable
underbelly which explained the character and touched the sympathy
nerve. She had a hard task to keep together the family for the weekend
and to juggle the situations plus coping with the food! The dialogue
between this couple really reflected their long-time married relationship.
The daughter, Diana played by Alison Burton, managed the character
of disillusion and some unhappiness but was persuaded to try again
with that son-in-law of David Percival as Alan with his exacting dialogue
and boring us with road numbers and statistics and late-night TV programmes,
and don’t we all know someone just like this? A typical teenager
from Bethany Cooper as Charlotte with the makeup and magazines and
not really appreciating her grand-father. The neighbours Duff and
Bridget (Kevin Oelrichs and Rowena Atkinson) were very good foils
to the situations and dialogues, especially the non-communications
regarding roads planning on one hand and the possible extra-marital
relationship on the other, and this foursome of friends and the underlying
plots worked well; as did the other member of the dinner party Hugh
(David Atkinson) throughout all that mixed subject dialogue, and we
wondered throughout whether he really had these affairs through his
professional contacts or were they just gossip? This was a well chosen
play for the company with these well matched characters and certainly
the production brought out all the comedy and interplay with style.
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