Bright Is the Ring of Words

This play takes its name from one of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Songs of Travel, famously set to music for baritone voice by Ralph Vaughan Williams. But it’s a deceptive title. This is not a pretty show, nor is it meant to be.

Erstwhile opera singer John is a withering alcoholic, rotting away in a damp-ridden flat with only long suffering help, Stanley, to keep him clean and dry. With John’s estranged daughter Melanie due to visit, Stanley attempts to tidy up – but no amount of dusting can do the job on John: dirty sheets, dirty pants, dirty old man.

As odd couplings go, it’s ripe for exploration and gentle giant John Garfield-Roberts is moving in the carer role. But it’s hard to see why Stan does care when John is so utterly dislikable. Whether this fault lies with actor or writer – Jeffrey Mayhew is both – is uncertain. But in giving John zero redeeming qualities, Mayhew’s play leaves little room for sympathy, just a bad smell that neither air freshener nor opera arias can shift.