Show: The Lady In The Van
Society: Romsey Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society (RAODS)
Venue: Plaza Theatre
Credits: Alan Bennett
Type: Sardines
Author: Meri Mackney
Performance Date: 16/07/2019
The Lady In The Van
Meri Mackney | 18 Jul 2019 10:57am
This production absolutely deserves a full auditorium, which it didn’t quite have last night.
The Lady in the Van, which has also been made into a film, was based on Alan Bennett’s diary-style book of the same name. It chronicles his experiences with the eccentric and very pungent Miss Shepherd, who moved the van she lived in into his driveway for 3 months, but stayed there for 20 years.
The play is written with a device where there are two Alan Bennetts, thus allowing the author to have dialogue with himself. I don’t want to spoil the novel way director Peter Moore has chosen to approach this dilemma of having virtually identical actors playing the role, but I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction between Alan Bennett 1 (Matt Ellison) and Alan Bennett 2 (listed in the programme as Lewis Hameltton). The timing between the two Alans was immaculate and there were some clever interactions in passing a note and pointed directional looks.
We come in to see a set which shows part of Alan’s study (very appropriately dressed), overlooking the driveway, indicated by a part wall and a very large set of gates, which dominate the stage. Alan enters to explain the background to the story and we get to enjoy the gradual approach to his residence by Miss Shepherd, which begins with him being first mistaken for Saint John and then inveigled into pushing her van down the road. Inevitably, eventually those large gates open and the van is pushed onto the driveway. Its passage ever nearer to Bennett’s house is conveyed through passing conversations with Bennet’s neighbours, Pauline (Sara Carter) and Rufus (Colin Russell). A nice touch, pointing the 70s setting, is Pauline doing some macramé as she speaks.
Matt Ellison has captured Alan Bennet’s languid tone and adjusted his appearance just enough to make us accept him entirely as Bennett. This performance is spot on and all the more impressive because he absolutely holds the audience’s attention in a very wordy role, with very limited cadence allowed. It is easy to believe one is actually watching and listening to Bennett.
However, Ellison’s impressive performance is more than matched by Christine English as the Lady herself. She speaks every line with the conviction that she is speaking the absolute truth, even, or especially, when what she is saying is clearly preposterous. Miss Shepherd, in her own mind, is perfectly logical and always right, despite her conviction that she is speaking with the Virgin Mary or the Pope. She is convinced that everyone should acknowledge her sense and do her bidding and generally they do, if only to get rid of the smell. She goes through a series of filthy costumes, showing her increasing incontinence, as Bennett’s drive gradually fills with a plastic bags full of her faeces. Despite all of this, she manages to be a sympathetic figure as she hints in her rambling and prayers of some disaster in her past which has sent her off the rails and driven her to her nomadic lifestyle.
These two massive performances are supported by a number of other characters who interact with Miss Shepherd and Alan Bennett. From these, Meriel Shepherd as Miss Underwood stood out, convincingly playing a nasty piece of work who knows more than she is prepared to say about Miss Shepherd and turns out to have been blackmailing her.
See this if you possibly can. The show runs until Saturday 20th July.
- : admin
- : 16/07/2019