Country Magic

Synopsis

Oliver Bashford returns from the First World War crippled, facially disfigured, and hopeless about his future. Unable to face the high-society lifestyle he once enjoyed, he hides himself in the countryside where he encounters a lonely, seemingly unattractive local girl, Laura Pennington. Forced to protect himself from the interference of his social-climbing parents, he proposes marriage, although neither loves the other. The reluctant couple, however, fall under the spell of Murray Hillgrove, a neighbour blinded in the war whose optimism and belief in the power of love instigates an extraordinary, perhaps even magical, change in the couple. With his encouragement, Oliver and Laura do fall in love and, as they do undergo a mysterious and inexplicable transformation. But can this fragile and private enchantment survive the cruel scrutiny of sceptical outsiders?

Our Review:

17 April 2009

The post-Edwardians loved nothing better than a hearty three-act play. Bookstalls groan with meaty theatrical dishes from the twenties whose casting requirements alone would give modern theatres screaming indigestion. Unless, that is, the dish in question can be filleted, stripped of its suet and served to us in a palatable two-hour portion, which is what director Phil Willmott has done with Arthur Wing Pinero’s fable The Enchanted Cottage. Sadly, though, and notwithstanding an unconvincing coulis of contemporary resonance (the programme attempts a Gulf War parallel), in the case of Country Magic ‘stodge minceur’ is still stodge.

Two Great War survivors, John Hillgrove (blinded) and Oliver Bashforth (maimed) meet at a cottage the latter has rented “for the purpose of being lonely”. Bashforth’s self-loathing is tempered when he meets the kindly though unattractive Laura, and the play’s cod-mysticism unfolds as their relationship develops. The couple embark...

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