Allegra with Maureen Lipman on tour – review

What a joy to have Maureen Lipman back on stage in Peter Quilter’s witty, bittersweet, and heartwarming new play Allegra. Lipman reunites with director and choreographer Stephen Mear, 28 years after they first worked together on the National Theatre’s production of Oklahoma!.

Quilter’s thoughtful story questions society’s tendency to repress anything that is seen as unusual. It follows Allegra, a relentlessly positive, older woman who lives alone. Some might deem her “eccentric”: she keeps her father’s ashes in a gravy tin, has no food in the cupboard, and cannot help bursting into song wherever she goes.

Her head is filled with an orchestra playing, and she wants to share in the joy it creates. In an effort to bring her back to normality and ensure she takes her medication, her brother Ronen enlists a carer, who soon falls in love with Allegra and all her quirks. But people don’t appreciate her enthusiasm for life; she is thrown out of shops and others complain to the police. Suddenly, all that makes Allegra happy and unique is under threat of silence.

Lipman carries the show in the titular role. Resplendent in wild, purple-tinged hair and brightly coloured clothes, she bursts with irrepressible joy and enthusiasm for life. Her comic timing is impeccable, gradually showing cracks of vulnerability developing in the character, even as she delivers waspish one-liners. Lipman is now 80, yet moves around the stage as though decades younger, and what she lacks in vocal talent, she more than makes up for in enthusiasm.

There is a charming sibling dynamic with John Middleton, who shows quiet frustration as the overly sensible and concerned brother Ronen. Conflicted, he wants Allegra to conform but understands that means the very essence of her is lost.

As straight-talking Czech carer Anna, Elizabeth Bower is efficiently brisk and rapidly charmed by Allegra’s eccentricities, eventually becoming her biggest defender. Bailey Patrick does his best with the rather one-dimensional role of Officer Rogers, who feels rather shoehorned into the production to represent curmudgeonly public opinion.

We see and hear all of Allegra’s internal songs coming to life as the play switches between what’s real and what’s inside her head. Songs such as “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” include the whole cast in lightly choreographed routines, complete with charming projections (by Ben Bull) and lighting (by Samuel Biondolillo) around Justin Williams’s busy, domestic set. It’s a clever device to portray an increasingly drifting mind, but the musical interludes often outstay their welcome. An attempt to create a rousing audience sing-a-long is awkward and falls rather flat.

Quilter’s writing has a gentle rhythm and there is a well-written sitcom-like feel to the comedy, but it never gets quite to the sharp nub of the issue that the public has a problem with those who do not quite fit in and that the happiness of others can be uncomfortable. The breaking of Allegra’s spirit has the potential for more poignancy than the script allows, often due to several unrealistic situations.

However, the production has already secured a West End transfer and despite the flaws, Lipman is a delight to watch in this nostalgic and touching play.