BEDROOM FARCE at the The Mill at Sonning

★★★★

“this vibrant revival offers many laugh-out-loud moments”

Based on a real-life incident in the author’s Stephen Joseph Theatre company in Scarborough, the comedy is set over the course of one Saturday night/Sunday morning in three different bedrooms. Wisely the director (Robin Herford, a stalwart of The Mill and an active member of Ayckbourn’s Scarborough based company, for just over a decade, earlier in his career) and designer (Michael Holt) have firmly set the show in the mid-1970s. Some of the language used, attitudes and relationships portrayed are decidedly ‘of their time’, although have the ring of truth still.

Three married couples, linked together with a fourth, by family, friendship and past relationships, ready themselves for an evening of enjoyment. The show opens with Ernest (Stuart Fox), obsessed with the damp patch in the spare room, and Delia (Julia Hills) dressing for an anniversary meal at their favourite restaurant. They consider themselves ‘regulars as they go every year’. Delia wants to talk about their son Trevor (Ben Porter) and the ‘bedroom problems’ he is having with his wife, the ‘entirely unsuitable’, Susannah (Allie Croker). Both of whom are on the guest list for prankster newlyweds, Malcolm (Antony Eden) and Kate’s (Rhiannon Handy) housewarming party that night. As are Jan (Georgia Burnell), the ‘much more suitable’ former partner of Trevor and Nick (Damien Matthews), her now husband.

Amidst the laughter there is exploration of what it means to be a married couple, the potential for infidelity and what a wife might expect to have to do to make a marriage work or the sensitivity of a husband’s ego. There is also a nod to the mental health pressures and potential victimhood within a relationship more talked about and taken more seriously today, perhaps, than fifty years ago. The more pragmatic ‘shut-up and carry-on’ attitude of Delia contrasting with the lack of confidence and self-doubt of her daughter-in-law, who is portrayed well as a nervous, irritatingly bird-like creature, repeating her mantra of self-worth at every unobserved opportunity.

There is plenty of good physical comedy too. Largely around Nick’s incapacity due to a ‘wrecked back’ meaning he remains at home alone in bed whilst Jan attends the party. This is added to through Malcolm’s attempt to prove himself, pitted against a flat-pack ‘surprise’ for his and Kate’s bedroom. The ‘coats on the bed’ of the party leading to an encounter between the former lovers, on which the rest of the plot turns, having earlier provided several moments of fine comic timing from Kate, still not ready as the guests start to arrive, being buried by the dozens of coats of the unseen guests downstairs.

The linchpin of Trevor, played with appalling self-obsession, belief and lack of awareness, wrecks not only the party, by fighting with Susannah, but also the night of Nick and Jan by descending unannounced to entirely unnecessarily apologise for his earlier actions. With Suzannah seeking her mother-in-law’s help disturbing the night of the older couple and the increasingly frenetic DIY that of the newlyweds, there is not much sleep for anyone. With Graham Weymouth’s quick and subtle lighting changes helping to shift focus across the three contrasting bedrooms on stage, the farcical element of the play alluded to in the title is enhanced well.

Ayckbourn is perhaps best known for his popular plays focused heavily on marriage in the middle classes and this vibrant revival offers many laugh-out-loud moments alongside a reassuring peek at earlier, seemingly simpler times that hints at the complications lurking below all marriages. You should see this production if you are content to laugh at yourself or those you know.