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Review- Humble Boy

October 29, 2008

humbleboy.jpgDate Reviewed: 29th October, 2008
Venue: Oldham Coliseum

star

Struggling playwrights must really hate Charlotte Jones. Jones is a former actress and her new career landed in her lap virtually overnight. Talent will out but judging from her first stage play - the glutinously sentimental Martha, Josie & the Chinese Elvis - this early success was unwarranted: look up the word ‘twee’ in the Oxford English Dictionary, and you’ll find a cast photo. Jones also collaborated with Lord Webber on mediocre musical The Woman in White. In a more enlightened society, such activities would guarantee her a seat on the village ducking stool.

Yet Jones really hit her stride with her second stage work, Humble Boy – a far more heartfelt, convincing work. A huge success when it premiered at the National Theatre in 2001, it has won numerous awards, and is now revived by the London Classic Theatre Company in a touring production.

Following the sudden death of his father, 35 year old Felix Humble - a socially inept Cambridge astrophysicist - returns to his Cotswold home, and his difficult, demanding mother, Flora. After a chaotic funeral, and the disappearance of his father’s prized bees, Flora reveals she is in love with uncouth neighbor and businessman George – much to Felix’s distress. Then George’s daughter Rosie arrives; she had a fling with Felix years ago and has a bombshell of her own to drop.

The show’s programme contains a cringe inducing interview with director Michael Cabot who gushingly talks about the play taking risks and being ‘terrifically brave.’ If only this were true. The life changing plot development at the end of Act 1 is entirely predictable, and Jones takes the soft option, airbrushing out the complexities such a revelation might bring. I would suggest risk taking is not really in her repertoire: Her strengths as a writer are emotional honesty and fine comic dialogue – not an easy combination to pull off (and she manages to make science sound fun, to).

Cabot’s cast all give committed performances. I particularly enjoyed Peter Cadden as the crass George; his speech about Icarus being a ‘stupid twat’ almost justifies the ticket price. Martin Wimbush brings an air of melancholy acceptance to the small but important role of Jim the Gardener, whilst Catherine Harvey is a fine, sparky presence as Rosie. There’s a real chemistry between her and John Dorney (quietly moving as Felix): that 4th star belongs entirely to them.

-Steve Timms

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