Opening Night Review by John Rigby
Altogether an enjoyable evening….
Plays set in homes for the elderly have become almost a sub-genre of their own these days, and on this matter I have to declare a personal interest. Being in my own eightieth year I try to resist the portrayal of old people as being either barking mad, pathetically downtrodden or at the very best endearingly dotty.
Diana Trent, played with bracing cynicism by Gill Barham, Is having none of this. She has no illusions about her dreary life at the Bayview Retirement Home, run by the penny- pinching Harvey Baines (Mark Hobson) who was inexplicably appointed to this position after a three-week training course (supervised perhaps by Basil Fawlty.) Diana’s acid references to “the sound of thudding bodies” and “hearses circling like sharks” make it clear in the first few minutes of the production that she is not going to be a dear old lady. As a former photo- journalist and war-correspondent she would probably have felt more at home in Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club, instead of seeing out her last days with the dreadful Harvey and his sidekick Jane. Heather Taylor throws herself into this role; being told by Diana that “I am not bloody deaf, neither am I simple” has no effect on her relentless cheeriness, which sets everyone’s teeth on edge and probably reconciles the residents to the prospect of a cost-cutting early death.
Salvation comes to Diana through the arrival of Tom Ballard, a larger-than-life character played with great vigour by John Tanner. Despite her initial misgivings he turns out to be her soulmate (and later a different kind of mate) – just as anarchic as her but a bit more cheerful. Together they turn their energies on the management, and also on Tom’s hapless son Geoffrey (James McKean) who is perhaps a nicer man than their constant derision suggests.
The production is carried along by the energetic direction of Verity Mann, and an interpretation that sometimes lifts the action from farce or slapstick and the characters from being simply caricatures. Diana’s scenes with her niece Sarah (played by Laura Rothwell) show that underneath her automatically cynical responses there is emotional vulnerability and more regrets than she cares to admit. The cast is completed by a cameo appearance by Jon Comyn-Platt as the clueless vicar who is (perhaps predictably) more doolally than any of the residents.
Altogether an enjoyable evening, played to an appreciative first- night house. The ready laughter of the audience (most of us of a certain age) showed how often the black humour of the play managed to hit home. The simplicity of the set worked most effectively, and I particularly enjoyed the fifties music soundtrack.
Waiting for God by Michael Aitkens is the first show of the 25/26 season by Saddleworth Players. It runs 27th September – 4th October at Saddleworth’s community theatre Millgate Arts Centre. tickets available on www.millgateartscentre.co.uk
