19 – 28 May 2022
by Alan Ayckbourn
Classic Ayckbourn comedy… As a respite, Annie has booked a weekend away and asked brother Reg and his wife Sarah to come down and look after mother in her absence. However, Annie’s planned break doesn’t happen when it is dicovered that, rather than going away as expected with her neighbour and frequent visitor Tom, she was planning to go with her sister Ruth’s husband Norman.
Over the course of the weekend, and four meals, the couple’s feelings and relationships are challenged.
CAST
Annie | Lucy Auva
Reg | Chris Hannigan
Sarah | Andrea Unwin
Ruth | Abigail Waterfield
Norman | Peter Calver
Tom | Richard Haslam
Directed by Nigel Kemp
Photography by Jan Kool
Review | April 2022 | Theo Spring
The unseen invalid mother, lying upstairs, is obviously not short of a bob or two as the dining room of her house is both well proportioned and elegant. A niche to display precious ornaments, an exit to a well-lit garden, some charming cabinets and centre stage, a beautiful large oval dining table – perfect for convivial family get-togethers. Set Designer Tony Dent with his final offering before moving away, did the play proud. Convivial meals are, however, not what this Alan Ayckbourn play is about.
Mother’s carer, Annie, has long looked after her, often without a break. Who then could blame her for seeking a little excitement of a weekend away? The fact that she chose to go with her sister’s husband, and to the uncertain delights offered by East Grinstead is central to a plot which slowly reveals defects and uncertainties in all the characters.
Lucy Auva’s Annie struck just the right note as she vacillated between excitement at her release and guilt about her companion. Desperation just to get away has forced her hand, albeit she would have much preferred it to be Tom the Vet, frequently a visitor to the house but with a slow perception of what he could have, if he could only see. Richard Haslam slowly brought Tom from a happy acceptance of just jogging along with Annie, to the realisation, eventually, that someone was making her unhappy and he cared. The underdog finally turned round and bit.
To enable the great East Grinstead escape, although thinking Annie was going solo, sister-in-law Sarah arrived, full of complaints about her own put-upon life, ‘helpful’ criticism about Annie’s lack of fashion sense and ever enquiring how things ‘were going’ with Tom. Andrea Unwin’s Sarah proclaimed bitterness with her own life, a zeal to force Annie to change her ways and an underlying insecurity in her relationship with both her husband and the rest of the family. Anger, annoyance, cajoling, self-pity, and a final pleasing thought of infidelity all were hers to deliver – and she did!
Jovial, blinkered and fond of his sister Annie, Sarah’s husband Reg forever tried to pour oil on waters which were moving from gently seething to boiling point. A man with an appetite too, who nobly stuffed himself with at least three bowls of cereal at breakfast. Chris Hannigan revealed a totally non-domesticated Reg, long practised at letting his wife’s barbs go over his head but certainly solicitous of his sister’s well-being whilst not entirely willing to take the burden of caring for his mother, onto his own shoulders.
And then, there is Norman. The subtitle of Ayckbourn’s trilogy, of which Table Manners is one, is The Norman Conquests. The other two – Round and Round the Garden and Living Together are set in the same time frame, with the same characters, but reveal what is going on when characters go out into the garden, or into the living room. Theatres have been known to perform all three plays simultaneously in adjoining sets, giving the whole story, which takes the whole day, with appropriate breaks.
Norman is a needy man, juxtaposed with an inflated ego and an ability to wheedle. Peter Calver made him slightly over-boisterous but handled Norman’s very long breakfast table speech with apt verbal comedy and excellent facial expressions. Can he, can’t he persuade Annie to stick to the East Grinstead plan? It is revealed he’s won her over before.
A latecomer to the dining room is Norman’s wife and Annie’s sister, Ruth. A businesswoman with short sight and with no family, caring little for her husband. Abigail Waterfield was crisp and to-the-point with Ruth’s feelings, creating even more discord round the table. One of the best-handled and funniest moments of the play is the seating plan for dinner – who should sit where, and why does poor Tom get the low chair making him struggle to eat?
The production generated much audience laughter on its opening night which bodes well for the rest of the run and I applaud Jane Bishop and Eloise Wynn-Jones for the provision of the food – from an easy lettuce leaf to an orange-looking stew. I suspect the cast thoroughly enjoyed creating the very varied characters and congratulate the Director, Nigel Kemp, for keeping the pace well up, moving his cast unobtrusively around a large set and creating the merriment that was so well deserved.