Synopsis Sidney and Jane are on their way up, Eva and Geoff are on their way out and the Brewster-Wrights are on their way down. Taking turns to host the annual gathering, the three couples get more festivity than they bargained for, as drink begins to flow faster than chatter and the reluctant revellers collide across the lino in agonisingly funny encounters. Alan Ayckbourn stirs up increasingly explosive cocktails of love and loneliness, as each party provides more biting comedy that the last with the kitchen becoming a hotbed of marital mayhem and domestic disarray.
The work of Alan Ayckbourn returned to the West End last night (11 December 2007, previews from 27 November) care of an all-star revival of his 1972 comedy Absurd Person Singular, which is booking for a limited season at the Garrick Theatre (See News, 6 Nov 2007). This new production is the first Ayckbourn in the West End since the start of the playwright’s self-imposed moratorium in 2002.
Absurd Person Singular visits three couples in their three kitchens on the Christmas Eves of three successive years: the lower-class Hopcrofts; their bank manager and his wife; and their architect neighbour with a suicidal wife. The Hopcrofts’ advance and the other couples’ decline are played out against a series of behind-the-scenes Christmas party disasters.
The three couples are played by David Bamber, Jane Horrocks, John Gordon Sinclair, Lia Williams, David Horovitch and Jenny Seagrove. The production is directed by Alan Strachan, designed by Michael Pavelka and presented by Bill Kenwright Ltd. One of the most prolific playwrights in British history, Alan Ayckbourn has written more than 70 plays, most of them premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre where he was artistic director for 36 years. He stepped down earlier this year, following a debilitating stroke (See News, 4 Jun 2007).
His West End comeback with this revival of Absurd Person Singular drew “seriously pleasurable” cries from first-night critics. In Alan Strachan’s “niftily directed” and “strongly cast, finely acted production”, critics were particularly impressed by the female leads: Lia Williams’ “freaky” Eva, Jenny Seagrove’s “brilliant” and “poignant” Marian, and Jane Horrocks’ “blissful” and “amusing” Jane. While remaining “knock-dead funny”, Ayckbourn’s ability to deal simultaneously with serious subjects of class and “casual callousness” and thereby convey a “dark” and “deeply poignant” message was well appreciated. “A glorious period treat” all round!
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (four stars) - “Director Alan Strachan is an Ayckbourn specialist … Absurd is something else: a knock-dead funny, brutally well constructed farce of drink, desolation and class warfare involving three couples in each others’ kitchens over three successive so-called festive seasons … None of the actors are playing for laughs, which is why they follow so thick and fast, Horovitch entering with a soaked trouser leg from a rogue soda siphon, or Horrocks and Bamber lying prone in a fit of misguided helpfulness, scrubbing the oven and seeing to the plumbing. The rictus of hospitality conceals the power struggle of social hierarchy as a building development in the town involves all three couples in wheels and deals and financial misfortune manifest in the bleak midwinter of the third act … The action is retained firmly in the early 1970s, with Michael Pavelka’s design catching both the brave new world of fitted kitchen drawers and cupboards and the miseries of adapted Victorianism, and Brigid Guy’s costumes – shiny plastic dresses, floral patterns, flares and velveteen - providing a glorious period treat in themselves.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (four stars) – “Ayckbourn has always written about class; but this play, in charting the unstoppable rise of Sidney Hopcroft and the comparable decline of his superiors, is on to something more … In asserting Ayckbourn's political shrewdness, I am not denying his capacity to make us laugh. But I am struck by the dangerous, edgy nature of the laughter which frequently arises from stunning male insensitivity. Alan Strachan's production combines furious fun with awareness of Ayckbourn's larger purpose. David Bamber's Sidney is not just a shrewd chancer but a demonic reptile who relishes his growing power over the people who once patronised him. Lia Williams shows Eva's tragic regression from freaky neurotic to blank-eyed suicide case. And David Horovitch captures the bloodhound-like pathos of the banker who dwindles into a class relic muffled up in his freezing kitchen. But all the performances are good, including Jane Horrocks' hausfrau, Jenny Seagrove's banker's wife relapsing into a gin-fuddled stupor and John Gordon Sinclair's feebly self-exculpating architect.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph - “Drama that is as funny, as accessible, and as unexpectedly painful as Ayckbourn at the top of his game is rare indeed, and London's Theatreland has seemed impoverished without him … This beautifully cast, niftily directed revival of one of his greatest and most daring comedies stands comparison with the great 1970s Ayckbourn productions … It's the women who dominate this play, as they react to their variously unsatisfactory husbands. Jane Horrocks is in blissful comic form as the cowed housewife, terrified of the posh guests arriving at her spotlessly clean abode … I didn't think anyone could match her but Lia Williams manages it in the second act when, entirely mute, she repeatedly tries and fails to commit suicide after her husband has threatened to walk out on her … Jenny Seagrove has never been better than as the poised, patronising Marian who gradually declines into alcoholism in a manner that combines the comic and the deeply poignant … This is a classic night of Ayckbourn. It feels almost indecent to laugh, but somehow you just can't stop yourself.”
Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard (four stars) – “An irresistible piece of theatre lights up the West End in time for Christmas. Absurd Person Singular offers a perfect antidote to the cloying bonhomie of the season and an evening in which waves of laughter give way to clouds of pathos … The Sidney of David Bamber, an actor whose gesticulating hands regularly put on the most excessive, almost non-stop show in town, do their familiar waving. Jane Horrocks, delectable and amusing as Jane in her Marigolds and high degree anxiety, flutters around indulging an escapist obsession with cleaning. As wife to David Horovitch's fine, true-to-life, eternally unaware bank manager, Jenny Seagrove's Marian puts on a brilliant comic show and ultimately a poignant one … Lia Williams' Eva, wife to John Gordon Sinclair's bland architect Geoffrey, tumbles even further when, apprised of his adultery, she passes act two in eloquent, grief-struck silence … Ayckbourn slips into funny, bad taste absurdity here. His last act coda, though, all bittersour humour - the middle-class couples brought low - pertinently marks the ascendancy of the ghastly, nouveau riche Hopcrofts. It was seriously pleasurable.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (four stars) “Last night I sensed an almost masochistic glee in Ayckbourn’s determination to set himself scary technical and emotional tests – and I felt he’d passed them all … It’s dark, it’s hilarious and, in Alan Strachan’s strongly cast, finely acted production, it is often both at once … Each character is nicely delineated and each evolves during the play, Seagrove from arrogant assurance to drunken chaos, Williams through desperation to a new strength, and, most importantly, Sidney from hand-wringing insecurity to confidence and power. And somewhere here is Ayckbourn’s point. The nobs decline. So does the bohemian Geoffrey, an architect whose latest building collapses. This little world ends up belonging to Sidney, the property developer, with his philosophy of dog-eat-dog … Has Ayckbourn ever written about class divisions, casual callousness and his other pet topics with such incisive humour? I don’t think so.”
Alan Ayckbourn may have fallen out of love with the West End in recent years, but this triumphant restoration of his sardonic 1972 Christmas classic Absurd Person Singular shows just how much the West End needs him at the top of his game.
Director Alan Strachan is an Ayckbourn specialist, as he confirmed earlier this year with his meticulous revival of the lesser known How the Other Half Loves for the Peter Hall Company. But Absurd is something else: a knock-dead funny, brutally well constructed farce of drink, desolation and class warfare involving three couples in each others’ kitchens over three successive so-called festive seasons.
What I had forgotten was the extent to which the on-stage crises are perpetrated in a sort of backstage panic to the main event, the unseen cocktail party with the chatter rising each time the door opens and someone is ejected from the merriment. In the first act, the small businessman’s wife, Jane (brilliant, frenetic Jane Horrocks), is desperately cleaning down all surfaces (including her husband, David Bamber’s beaming Sidney) and searching for tonic water, a quest that involves a rain-drenched Outward Bound expedition in her own back garden.
In the second, the lizard-like architect Geoffrey (John Gordon Sinclair) is holding the fort – “What I lack in morals I make up in ethics” – while his zonked-out wife Eva (Lia Williams in a post-hippie frizzy hairstyle) tries to commit suicide by several means (Sabatier knife, gas oven, pills, light fitting flex). In the third, the company subsides into games-playing torpor while bank manager Sidney (David Horovitch) expatiates on “this woman business” and his wife Marion (Jenny Seagrove) settles into a gin-soaked immunity like some tragic remnant in Donizetti or Eugene O’Neill.
Seagrove doesn’t quite describe that extra dimension, but you can see where she’s going. None of the actors are playing for laughs, which is why they follow so thick and fast, Horovitch entering with a soaked trouser leg from a rogue soda siphon, or Horrocks and Bamber lying prone in a fit of misguided helpfulness, scrubbing the oven and seeing to the plumbing.
The rictus of hospitality conceals the power struggle of social hierarchy as a building development in the town involves all three couples in wheels and deals and financial misfortune manifest in the bleak midwinter of the third act. Here, the small business couple have risen like (and with) dough while the professional classes are in economic and spiritual retreat.
The action is retained firmly in the early 1970s, with Michael Pavelka’s design catching both the brave new world of fitted kitchen drawers and cupboards and the miseries of adapted Victorianism, and Brigid Guy’s costumes – shiny plastic dresses, floral patterns, flares and velveteen - providing a glorious period treat in themselves.
Not that funny in fact I hardly laughed at all and the play is not helped by the undeground trains rumblng under the theatre which has always been a problem in this theatre. - ILS
13 Feb 08
Very unfunny and poorly performed. Nothing worse than listening to lines and watching situations then re-imagining them in your head performed well. David Bamber and Jane Horrocks gurn through the cheapest laughs, Jenny Seagrove proves that comedy acting isn't one of her strengths, Horovitch phones it all through and John Gordon Sinclair can obviously no longer be bothered. Lia Williams is better. Embarrased for the tourists who will go home thinking this is british theatre at its best. Re cast it, there's nothing wrong with the play. - Claire Storey
29 Jan 08
Very unfunny and poorly performed. Nothing worse than listening to lines and watching situations then re-imagining them in your head performed well. David Bamber and Jane Horrocks gurn through the cheapest laughs, Jenny Seagrove proves that comedy acting isn't one of her strengths, Horovitch phones it all through and John Gordon Sinclair can obviously no longer be bothered. Lia Williams is better. Embarrased for the tourists who will go home thinking this is british theatre at its best. Re cast it, there's nothing wrong with the play. - Claire Storey
29 Jan 08
This is conclusive proof of Nicholas Hytner's 'old white men' theory. The critics have heaped praise on a dreadfully dated, seriously unfunny, overacted, tackily designed, predictable, cliche-ridden and deadly dull museum piece. Based on the audience reaction last night and many of the comments below, I am not alone! Gentlemen, you are seriously out-of-touch. I sincerley hope the many young people in the audience are not put off theatre for life. For non-theatre lovers and 'old white men' only. - Gareth James
25 Jan 08
Lame - in the extreme. I'm a fan of Abigail's Party and The Anniversary, but this wasn't in the same league. The script is thin and has aged very badly.
Poorly acted, with the exception of Lia Williams who really shone - act 2 being the clear highlight of the play. The rest of the cast didn't seem to care, and given the script, I'm not surprised. Not recommended.
- mike
21 Dec 07
Absurd Person Singular is based around the clever concept of three successive Christmas Eve gatherings at three separate but interlinked households.The first act clearly influenced Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party as David Bamber and Jane Horrocks encounter excruciating embarrassments as they try to entertain and influence their "social betters". Act 2 is riotously funny but surely only Alan Ayckbourn could wring humour from a situation where a manically depressed Lia Williams is thwarted in several attempts to kill herself. Unfortunately by Act 3 Ayckbourn seems to have axhausted all the possibilities for comedy and is at a bit of a loss as to what to do with the characters, particularly John Gordon Sinclair who is almost entirely redundant by this stage. (The Glaswegian actor employs a bizarrely unconvincing Scottish / Irish accent.) I can see that there is a point to be made about the shifting classes during the 70s but sadly the final act is a letdown after the comic brilliance of parts 1 & 2. - David Baxter
19 Dec 07
Poor, tired production and some weak acting apart from the brilliant Lia Williams. Did not enjoy it. - Fred
17 Dec 07
An excellent play, lovely sets, well cast, great acting.
Particularly impressive were Jane Horrocks and the ever watchable David Bamber, who surely has the largest muscles I've ever seen on a 50-year old man. In my opinion (okay, so I'm slightly weird), the play was worth watching just for the moment Bamber takes his shirt off...it certainly stunned the audience into silence!!
Brilliant show - I heartily recommend it, and I'll definitely be going again before it closes in March. - RJ Valentine
17 Dec 07
PS I don't know where this '3 plays' comment has come from but it's a very strange one! There are actually quite a few plays on right now, some very good indeed - 2 at Trafalgar Studios (OK so you may not count these), Absurd Person Singular, Glengarry Glen Ross, Mousetrap, Shadowlands, Country Wife, Boeing Boeing, Tintin, Nicholas Nickleby, The Seagull, King Lear, Swimming with Sharks, 39 Steps... - Sara
13 Dec 07
I really enjoyed this show. It is a bit of a dinosaur, but I do seem to like that era (and I'm 33 not 60!). If you liked Abigail's Party or The Anniversary, you'll like this one. - Daniel
Opened on 24 Apr 1889, funded by W.S. Gilbert. 675 seats. Bought from Andrew Lloyd Webber and now owned by Broadway producer Max Weitzenhoffer and Nica Burns.Society of London Theatre member.
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