Bedroom Farce by Alan Ayckbourn. The Mill at Sonning, Reading to 21 September 2024.

4✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“Fifty years on and going strong.”

A hit at the National Theatre and then in the West End in 1977 Alan Ayckbourn's play - first staged in Scarborough in 1975 where all his plays begin - is about marriage and what happens when cuckoos belonging to one nest cause havoc in various other nests. It has stood the test of time remarkably well and this production directed by Robin Herford should keep the Sonning audience laughing happily at themselves. It is not quite as daring as it was fifty years ago, but Aykbourn's jokes survive  because he is writing about real people and not the stock characters who populate most farces of the period which often now seem dated and far from funny. Beneath the laughter he shows showing how marriages can get stale, how living with someone is difficult and how coping with some of one's sillier friends  or relations can create some home truths getting told perhaps better unsaid. The production is well cast with pitch perfect performances from Stuart Fox and  Julia Hills as Ernest and Delia, the middle aged couple celebrating an anniversary who have settled down to have some pilchards and a much read book at bedtime when the behaviour of their flakey son Trevor and his fragile wife Susannah cause a night for them and their neighbours in which nobody gets to fall asleep and all the marriages come under strain. Maybe some of the cast act rather too much as if they were characters in a Ray Cooney farce – always ciphers - but  Ben Porter is undeniably funny as the gangling, insensitive and thick as three posts Trevor while Alie Croker twitches to the manner born as the betrayed Susannah.

The set consists of three bedrooms. In one Malcolm and Kate are getting over a disastrous house warming party and he is intent on building an Ikea dressing table he has bought for her. In one Ted is trapped with a bad back in bed and Jan has returned from the house warming at which she had an impromptu fling with Trevor. And the third belongs to Ernest and Delia and looks over both in the rather clumsily constructed set and overshadows what happens below. The problem is the stage itself which is wide and shallow and designer Michael Holt has not solved it. As Trevor goes from room to room , however, never taking no for an answer with Susannah in hot pursuit it all bubbles along nicely enough.

Ayckbourn is still churning out plays – he has written 90 so far and more are in the pipeline – but it is a long time since any of them made their way out of Scarborough. One does wonder why especially with this one which has dated very little. It remains as hard hearted and funny a look at middle class marriage as it was in the beginning and the middle class marrieds in the audience had  clearly been there, done that, got the T shirt and enjoyed a snack at bedtime.

Cast

Georgie Burnell – Jan.

Allie Croker – Susannah.

Antony Eden – Malcolm.

Stuart Foc – Ernest.

Rhiannon Handy – Kate.

Julia Hills – Della.

Damien Matthews – Nick.

Ben Porter – Trevor.

Creatives

Director – Robin Herford.

Set Designer – Michael Holt.

Costume Designer – NatalieTichener.

Lighting Designer – Graham Wetmouth.

Fight Director – Jonathan Leverett.