A Review.: Henry and Alice and Orca

by Les May

THE third production of the Curtain Theatre’s season of five plays has the intriguing title ‘The Secret Lives of Henry and Alice’.  Contrary to the picture of the two lithe twenty somethings on the front of the programme the characters have been married for a quarter of a century and, shall we say, are no longer in the full flush of youth, and romance, if not actually dead, is certainly sleeping quietly.  Time enough for each of them to be familiar with the other’s idiosyncrasies; time enough its seems for a tinge of irritation to have crept in.

But what to do?  Instead of engaging with each other, with all its potential for open warfare, each of them engages with us, the audience.  They tell us the words and dreams they do not, or perhaps dare not, share with each other. There’s no malice in what they tell us, but not each other.  Even in their dreams they shrink from anything that would disturb the gentle, if dull, equilibrium of their lives.

The most exciting thing that happens to punctuate the ordinariness of their lives is the death of their apparently ‘non-binary’ goldfish, Orca.  So why was it so funny?  That’s easy; an excellent script and two actors who slid so comfortably into their roles.  Damian Kavanagh gave Henry the right amount of dullness combined with a wry humour.  Ros Hendren showed a talent for switching Alice from the frumpiness of reality to the sexy seductress of her fantasy.

You can find details of this and future productions on the Curtain Theatre website: www.curtaintheatrerochdale.co.uk

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Flint Street Nativity: A Review

by Les May

I WAS looking forward to first night of the second offering of the season from Rochdale’s Curtain Theatre, Flint Street Nativity.  Did it live up to my (high) expectations?  Well, almost.

An adult theatre group, playing children to an audience which had a fair sprinkling of Primary School teachers amongst its members, who between them must have been involved in dozens of such happenings, was always going to be a challenge, especially as many of the cast had to appear a second time as their parent later in the play.

The first twenty minutes or so I found baffling.  I much prefer to laugh with children not at them.  It was I suppose intended to ‘set the scene’ by recapitulating the rehearsals and introducing us to the different personalities of the children.  I found myself longing for Michael Winner to rise from the grave and say ‘Calm down dear’ or an Ofsted inspection to take place.

Things changed once ‘The Christmas Story’, or at least the Flint Street version of it, got underway.  There was the expected humour of the ‘child’ cast being in the wrong place on the stage, being too shy to speak their lines, bizarre farm animals and upside down babies.  But some of the funniest pieces were from the innocent honesty of some of ‘the children’, verbal misunderstandings, and new words to old carols.

After the one king with two presents, bath salts and myrrh, had found her way to the baby Jesus, who by this time was looking rather the worse for wear, it only needed Herod and his cardboard castle to round off the story.   But it didn’t finish there.

In the final scene we were invited to the meet the parents over glasses of punch and hear the prejudices they had handed on to their children.  And what a bunch they were!

But that wasn’t really the end, because Tim’s dad appears in the playground and we are fleetingly invited to the darker side of Christmas for some parents.   If you are unfortunate enough to recognise him, just remember miracles do sometimes happen at Christmas.  Honestly they really do.

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Curtain Theatre Review: Spring and Port Wine

by Les May

THE FIRST production of the Rochdale Curtain Theatre for the 2019-20 season is Spring and Port Wine.  It’s an everyday story of Northern folks in the shape of the Crompton family; Father Rafe, Mother Daisy, their four children who are young adults, and a cadging neighbour who manages her affairs by ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’.  You’ll find all the cliches, all the stereotypes and, to use a word currently in vogue, all the tropes, of Northern family life, including Brass Bands, The Messiah and Huddersfield Choral Society.  It’s a ‘feelgood play’, and I loved every minute of it!

It first saw light as a radio play in 1957 under a different name, then a stage play and had to wait until 1965 before it got its present title.   Knowing when it was written, and hence when it is set, helps make sense of the part of the play when Rafe tells how he and Daisy met a party of Hunger Marchers in the 1930s, men who, as he puts it were whistling because they hadn’t the strength to sing.

As ever the acting was first class, but for me the star was the lady who played Daisy, not because she had taken over the part at very short notice and had to work from the script, something she did almost transparently, but because she brought to the role just the the right amount of fluster, patience, stoicism, loyalty and resolve.  An excellent and very believable performance.

For more details of this and upcoming shows visit

https://www.curtaintheatrerochdale.co.uk/

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