ACCOLADE at the Theatre Royal Windsor

★★★½

“a grand revival that entertains and chills in equal measure”

“We all have one thing we’re ashamed of. Even the judge has, who’ll be peering at you over his glasses, making you feel like dirt. His secret may be the nastiest of the lot. Only you have committed the sin of being found out…”

The Theatre Royal has taken a bold decision with this revival of Emlyn Williams’ 1950 drama about a Nobel prize winning author with an addiction to sleazy sex. A knighthood from the king is about to propel William Trenting into the very heart of the establishment. But as his acquiescent wife knows, down at the Blue Lion in Rotherhithe he’s plain Bill Trent ‘the tramp’ who has a penchant for regular orgies.

The set is an immaculately brown period re-creation by Julie Godfrey who also designed the costumes. But how relevant to today’s audience is the moral anguish of 75 years ago? The answer is that accents and social mores may change but human fallibility does not. ‘Accolade’ sharply echoes recent sexual scandals involving any number of contemporary high profile individuals.

And although the plot relates the story of a man accused of sex with an underage girl, there are LGBT undercurrents. Emlyn Williams was bisexual throughout his adult life and took the lead at the show’s first production.

Director Sean Mathias has taken some imaginative decisions in both casting and design. Ayden Callaghan (Emmerdale and Hollyoaks) opens the show encased in something like a giant test tube which seems to symbolise the punishing glare of public scrutiny to which his character is about to be exposed. In this central role, his low-key performance was uneasily at odds with the rest of the cast. His Trenting does not belong in this sophisticated middle class world. But this is a provocative play of uneasy opposites. Public and private lives. Adults and minors. The establishment and the rest of us. In a telling line, Trenting admits that he is ‘growing up in front of my own son’.

Honeysuckle Weeks sparkles as Trenting’s compliantly loving wife Rona. As Trenting’s son, Louis Holland gives an engaging performance, literally drawing a veil across the scene in what seems to be a vain attempt to hide his family’s private drama from our gaze. Holland plays a bookish and privately educated 14 year old, in a pointed parallel to the child victim of Trenting’s philandering.

The sound design by David Gregory was particularly effective. Jamie Hogarth gives an intriguing performance as Albert, Trenting’s secretary with a dodgy past the author managed to pick up in a pub. Narinder Samra is terrific as Trenting’s insinuating blackmailer. Williams’ writing is peppered with witticisms, but very much of its time. Sara Twomey and Gavin Fowler give colourful performances as the cheery proprietors of the Blue Lion pub, who slip gleefully into Trenting’s posh home life.

‘Accolade’ is a grand revival that entertains and chills in equal measure.

ACCOLADE at the Theatre Royal Windsor as part of UK Tour

Reviewed on 6th June 2024

by David Woodward

Photography by Jack Merriman

Previously reviewed at this venue:

OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR | ★★★★ | April 2024

CLOSURE | ★★★★ | February 2024

THE GREAT GATSBY | ★★★ | February 2024

ALONE TOGETHER | ★★★★ | August 2023

BLOOD BROTHERS | ★★★★★ | January 2022

THE CHERRY ORCHARD | ★★★★ | October 2021

ACCOLADE

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★★★★

“A multi-talented cast of Pierrot-style performers … give their all in this satirical rollercoaster of a show.”

As one of the UK’s leading touring companies with a commitment to theatre that ‘entertains, provokes and inspires in equal measure’, Blackeyed Theatre are continuing their anniversary tour of Joan Littlewood’s pioneering ‘Oh What a Lovely War’ with a stop in Windsor.

The piece was developed in an improvisatory style by Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop in in 1963. Her vision was to break the fourth wall that separates audience from performer, challenging elitism by taking theatre to where it was most needed as part of her proud boast that she was a ‘vulgar woman of the people’.

A multi-talented cast of Pierrot-style performers, most of whom trained on the Rose Bruford School’s Actor Musicianship programme, give their all in this satirical rollercoaster of a show. Director Nicky Allpress acknowledges the complex challenges of the piece which she describes as ‘a beast’ to rehearse – but her vision shines through.

Projections designed by Clive Elkington detail the heart-rending cost of the so-called ‘war to end all wars’ that pointlessly took the lives of tens of millions of young people whilst their unfeeling commanders remained indifferent to their struggle from a position of relative safety behind the lines.

An atmospheric backdrop is created by a circus tent inspired set (Victoria Spearing) evocatively lit by Alan Valentine. The cast play percussion, trumpet, double bass, accordion and more. They sing the old battlefield songs with a mad intensity which seemed to escape the audience member to my right. He sang along gleefully until the fierce cost of the conflict began to appear. Then he was silent.

Even before the show opens, Pierrots lounge in a box and interact with the audience in surprising ways. There are a number of stand-out scenes, including a poignant re-creation of the moment when soldiers met in no-man’s land on Christmas Day. But there’s no false sentimentality here and the satire is brilliantly sharp in a number of key scenes that depict the officer ‘donkeys’ who ordered the British lions into destruction. Naomi Gibbs has designed some clever costumes that at one point permit the cast to play both officers and wives in a viciously entertaining ballroom scene.

The company demonstrated a brilliant command of different voices, and their take on the indifferent drawl of the officer class was particularly impressive. Tom Benjamin sparkled as the MC and Harry Curley and Euan Wilson gave equally strong performances. The other members of the cast shone equally in this non-stop cavalcade of a show.

Tag Archives: Theatre Royal Windsor

ACCOLADE

★★★½

Theatre Royal Windsor

ACCOLADE at the Theatre Royal Windsor

★★★½

“a grand revival that entertains and chills in equal measure”

ACCOLADE at the Theatre Royal Windsor as part of UK Tour