Auntie and Me

Synopsis

Kemp hasn't seen his Aunt for over twenty years. So when he receives a letter from her out of the blue telling him of her imminent death, he rushes to her bedside. However, he soon realises that Auntie might take a little longer to die than he'd anticipated... Eccentric and touching, Auntie and Me explores the things that makes us who we are with originality and honesty. Running time 90mins

Our Review:

15 January 2003

Eddie Izzard's now a West End regular (and soon to go to Broadway with A Day in the Death of Joe Egg); the League of Gentlemen just closed in Art (and during the run of that show, Jack Dee, Frank Skinner and Sean Hughes were amongst the rotating casts to appear in it); and Dawn French is on the way in My Brilliant Divorce.

So comics-turned-stage actors are nothing new. But the joy and discovery of seeing Alan Davies in his straight stage debut in a mordantly, bleakly funny play called Auntie and Me is that he takes to the stage as naturally as his famous curly mop sits on his head.

A hit at the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe, Auntie and Me transfers to the West End still feeling freshly minted. Davies plays Kemp, a bank clerk who has no friends or libido. What he does have is a perverse sense of duty when it comes to an ageing aunt he's not seen for 30 years. This propels him to drop everything and travel...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (212.211.99.2) - 1 April 2003:

I found the shortness of the scenes, particulary in the first part, really irritating. Alan Davies seems to be going through the motions, but Margaret Tysak make a lots of a virtually silent role. It's an odd piece, difficult to dislike but hardly a rave. Thank goodness for the twist towards the end; it would be a dead end without it !...

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