“Anyone for olives?”
No curtain opening, a showroom show home of 1970s white goods and marketed modernity, awaited its residents, the fluffy white carpets, like care bear clouds indicating no children lived here in this alternative reality. Beverley swoops in, peels back the plastic from the new, leather suite, a foretelling of the unpeeling of layers to come.
Over-dressed in her evening dress, occupying stage and space from her toes to her finger tips, constantly moving, swirling her chiffon, red-headed and richly-Welsh voiced, this Beverley tells us she is not the Beverley of Alison Steadman fame in the original Mike Leigh film. Laura Rogers is her own Beverley, and as the alcohol flows at her nice neighbour’s drinks party, the essential hollowness of her marital reality with Laurence, played by Leander Deeny, unlayers.
Deeny performed a stressed, over-trying estate agent reminiscent of 1970s early evening sit-coms.Hot under the collar, he moved to keep up with Beverley’s dance but sometimes less is more.
Director Jack Bradfield’s diverse casting works and it is interesting how diversity changes the script, shifting an emphasis from the object of what is said to what is being said about the character delivering the line. When Tony tells Amy Rockson’s Susan that ‘’a couple of black lads’’ have turned up at Abigail’s party, his quietly inferred racism is all too apparent.
The audience enjoyed Joe Blakemore’s Tony, laughing at his humourless, mono responses which left me uncomfortable. The undercurrent of unspoken domestic abuse was chilling and the implicit racism cold. Here, Chaya Gupta unmatched her husband as Angela, for women in this situation will be cautious, on edge, alert for danger, listening and responding with their whole body, not just with their ears and words. Slow down.
This is a new take on an old classic with a currency of message. As my companion noted, material investment cuts across cultures and time and the bigger the show, how often the less there is to hide.
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