Bedroom Farce

Probably because it deals with issues that will always be topical, Bedroom Farce, first produced in 1975, is another one of Aykbourn’s plays that refuses to show its age. And this production by Banbury Cross Players did it proud.

The play takes place in three bedrooms and involves four couples – which immediately raises a number of questions. Not least how can a set to represent these be created in a relatively small space, a question which Richard Ashby and his set makers (assisted by a lighting team who were totally on the ball with their lighting cues) answered with great skill. How to make the four couples move around the three bedrooms in a way that made sense is a question which Mr Aykbourn gets full marks for by answering in such a clever, witty way.

Director Trish Thompson is to be congratulated on the quality of all the performances. The cast had learned their lines well and diction was excellent throughout. There was a very good sense of comic timing. Rob Hall put in a great performance as the egocentric twit, Trevor. Peter Bloor, as his kindly but rather thoughtless dad, Ernest, and Janice Lake as Delia, his mother, were completely believable as his parents. In the same vein I thought that Tom Perry and Tanis Hamilton-Everest made the most of their parts as Malcolm and Kate, the young couple whose housewarming party is the catalyst for the bust-up between Trevor and his wife Susannah, which lies at the heart of the play’s action. Susannah, neurotic and unhappy in her marriage to Trevor was played superbly by Tara Lacey – drawing the comedy and pathos from a part which could be easily (and lazily) played just for laughs. Andy Crump was excellent as Nick, who spends almost the whole play in bed, invalided by a bad back but making the most of his situation by writhing around and complaining bitterly about his situation. Comic but also controlled – with Helena Boughton providing the ideal foil as his wife Jan, significantly, and a fact never forgotten, Trevor’s ex.

The whole production was excellent. The night I attended there was a full house and with theatre of this quality I was not surprised. 

• Type: user
• Performance Date: 16/10/2014
• Star rating: 12345