When The Lilac Blooms, My Love

Writer Jane Huxley’s premise is a good one – daughter returns home with new boyfriend to announce that she’s pregnant, but said boyfriend tries to run off with his girlfriend’s mother. Unfortunately, Huxley fills her script with stilted and clichéd dialogue which would feel more at home in a day-time soap opera than on a London stage.

With such underwhelming material you would have hoped that director Simon Beyer would have given the evening some pace, if only to get it over with more quickly. Instead, he draws everything out, creating no sense of drama and undermining any hope of the conflict the plot so desperately needs.

Cornwell is, as expected, excellent in the role of the dotty old lady – a type of character she has virtually made her own – and the young couple (Polly Banwell as the daughter Nicky and Steve Smith as her boyfriend Darius) aren’t bad. The parents are another matter, though. Sally Farmiloe-Neville as the mother, Simona, is as unconvincing as the terrible wig she wears. She knows her lines and does her moves, but that’s about it. Aidan Stephenson as her husband, Milton, is little better. He either mumbles with no inflection or shouts, with little in between. Both of their performances are as wooden as Fly Davis’s excellent, if somewhat wobbly, set.

When I attended there were less than a hundred people in the audience and that was far more people than the play deserves. Only go if you want to see Cornwell live on stage – she shines, but against a rather dull background.

– David Phipps-Davis