|
 Manchester
Royal Exchange Theatre
Review by Holly Kenny
In the programme notes for the Royal
Exchange' production of Noel Coward's classic, and very English, comedy,
Hay Fever, the director Greg Hersov declares that the theatre 'enjoys
producing summer fun.'
That said, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was late autumn on a gloomy
and wet Manchester night when we head down to the ‘Exchange to see the
play for ourselves.
Hay Fever has always been regarded as one of Coward's lesser comedies
when set next to his best work like Private Lives; the critical
consensus being that it is an uneven and somewhat insubstantial comedy
of manners.
Despite its energy and invention, this performance does little to dispel
this estimation.
For younger members of the audience, the 1930s upper-middleclass setting
must be quite alien and hard to engage with, and the humour quite old
fashioned.
Hay Fever is set at the country retreat of a bohemian and dysfunctional,
family with artistic pretensions called the Bliss'; comprising novelist
David, his flamboyant, 'retired', actress wife Judith and their
children, would be painter Simon, and his brattish sister, Sorel.
The plot is simply that each of the highly family members invites a
guest down for a weekend party which, due to their selfishness and lack
of social skills, descends into high farce.
Despite being peppered with good one liners the dialogue is often
inconsequential and the characters in Hay Fever are either
one-dimensional, or else lean so far in the direction of caricature that
it’s hard to become fully involved in the play.
Yet what holds the whole thing together is some great performances by
the cast.
Television sitcom favourite, Belinda Lang (2.4 Children), gives a
fantastic, over the top performance as Judith Bliss, an allegedly
retired actress whose melodramatic behaviour indicates she misses the
greasepaint, whilst there is admirable support from another television
stalwart, Lysette Anthony (Three Up, Two Down, Jonathan Creek), as the
vampish and acid tongued Mira, Simon's invited guest for the weekend.
However, while David is meant to be the domineering and eccentric
patriarch of the family, Ben Keaton, with his reedy voice and lack of
strange presence, creates a void at the centre of the drama.
At the few moments in the play when it becomes more serious and darker
in tone, and thus consequently more engaging, there is always hysterical
intervention from the annoying Simon, a wildly over the top Chris New,
to break the tension.
The topic of a dysfunctional family may have been novel and shocking to
Coward's peers, but in an age when TV constantly subjects us to
'families from hell' the Bliss clan now seem somewhat tame and
antiquated.
Hay Fever is an enjoyable and never dull evening out, but is ultimately
an overwrought and forgettable comedy of manners.
• ‘Hay Fever’ runs until August 16th at the Royal Exchange Theatre,
Manchester.
Recommended link:
►
www.royalexchange.co.uk/play.asp?playid=268
►
Return to Best of the
Rest
|
