The plot plods but Penelope’s in her pomp!
The Chalk Garden (Festival Theatre, Chichester) Verdict: Fragrant but dated
A COPY of Debrett’s guide to social etiquette in Fifties high society may help interpret the postures and pecking orders of Enid Bagnold’s 1955 play, here starring Penelope Keith.
It’s a droll drawing room comedy about an elderly dowager (Keith) determined to hang on to her fractious teenage granddaughter in defiance of the girl’s gallivanting mother. The plot is an amiable muddle in which the mum is eloping to Aden with her diplomat fancy man, which in turn prompts the grandmother to hire a governess (Amanda Root) who is a horticultural fundamentalist.
By marvellously improbable coincidence the governess is a murderess who escaped a death sentence from a judge who just happens to drop in for luncheon at the dowager’s home.
Dame Penelope — the Great Egret of British comedy — thrives in an estuary of well-turned witticism. Attempting to eavesdrop she admits her hearing is ‘not its best through mahogany’.
Such bons mots don’t add up to a compelling plot, but you can still enjoy watching Keith waft imperiously about the stage, hands at chest height as though steadying herself on invisible banisters.
Bagnold’s comedy, however, remains a rather rickety theatrical curio.