Bedroom Farce (Salisbury Playhouse)

There’s always a hint of surprise in Alan Ayckbourn‘s work. You go in thinking you know what to expect, middle class suburban values explored in a relatively safe, cosy way. And yet every time the darkness in his middle class milieu thumps you square on the chin. In Gareth Machin‘s well acted production at the Salisbury Playhouse, those gentle routines of domestic togetherness drew warm laughter but it’s the final tableaux as one of the characters mutters her self help mantra that sticks with you. Though some of the audience attempt a chuckle, it sticks in the throat, for some of these characters, the future looks anything but rosy.

The Playhouse has been transformed into the round for this production and for Rattigan’s Separate Tables later on in the season and it inevitable suits a writer who has spent a large portion of his career writing for the in the round Stephen Joseph theatre in Scarborough. The audience are intimately engaged with Ayckbourn’s ingenious comedy, as four couples talk, laugh and implode in three bedrooms over two celebrations and one feast of pilchard sandwiches over the course of a long Saturday night.

Machin’s production skilfully ensures good sightlines throughout the piece and also draws a number of impressive performances from his cast. Penelope Beaumont‘s Delia, encumbered with a leg cast due to an injury sustained during the week but gliding gracefully around the stage unencumbered, and Graham Seed‘s Ernest are the older couple celebrating their anniversary although Nick is more concerned with the leaking roof. They bring their experience to bear on convincing us of a long-term marriage and the cosiness sandwiches in bed and a cup of tea in the morning can bring.

Malcolm (Niall Costigan) and Kate (Eleanor Wyld) bedroom is at the centre of the stage and they are the glue that blinds the couples together, its at their party Trevor, all dippy handog lothario in Mawgan Gyles performance, will seduce his ex Jan (Emily Wachter) and implode with his damaged wife Susannah (Emma Noakes-bringing a dangerous, unhinged but weirdly sensual energy to the piece). Meanwhile Jan’s husband Nick is stuck at home with a bad back and David Partridge‘s frustrated agonised performance brought many a chuckle from the female members who no doubt have seen it all before. Wyld’s is the performance of the night, she manages to make normality endlessly watchable and her relationship, with Costigan’s DIY disaster Malcolm, is touchingly real.

Bedroom Farce may not be the most adventurous choice in the repertoire, but when it has been impeccably cast and directed there are joys aplenty to be had. With a majority of the cast also being kept on for Rattigan’s Separate Tables, it looks like being a strong Autumn season for the Salisbury Playhouse.

Bedroom Farce plays at the Salisbury Playhouse until the 4th October.