I don’t believe it! Grumpy Virgie gives Victor Meldrew a run for his money
After Electra (Tricycle Theatre) Verdict: Portrait of the artist, ageing disgracefully
THERE are great parts in a new play at Kilburn’s fringy Tricycle. The best is Virgie, an 84-year-old artist who wants to kill herself before going gaga. Virgie (Marty Cruickshank) is a liberal, female version of TV’s Victor Meldrew, boiling with indignation, astoundingly frank — a strong comic creation. Virgie has summoned her dumpy, 58-year-old, sexually unfulfilled daughter Haydn to her Essex coast house (a former railway carriage) to startle her with the news of her suicide plan. Haydn, a bereavement counsellor, has a panic attack. She is played by Veronica Roberts, looking a shade too old for the role. A couple of Virgie’s bohemian friends — a randy actor and his vegan, novelist wife (Neil McCaul and Kate Fahy, both terrific) — have also been invited. They try to stop the awkward Virgie from drowning herself. But might it not be better to go out on a high, with all your faculties, than later to have a stroke and be spoon-fed by a daughter who hates you? Playwright April De Angelis has an eye for character. At least six of the octet here are glorious grotesques and very English. The men are useless: dim-witted, ill-disciplined, needy. A drudge could almost accuse this black comedy of sexism. Much of the show is highly watchable and the acting is strong. Rachel Bell is delicious as Virgie’s insensitive sister Shirley, an educationalist. ‘I was a headmistress,’ she barks. ‘I’m used to controlling situations I know very little about.’ Plenty of similar lines smack into the back of the net. Miss Cruickshank is perfect as the Meldrewish Virgie. Yet the play feels cluttered. Is it about euthanasia or parental failings, a daughter’s guilt, middleclass amorality or even art? The arrival of a character in the closing scene adds to the sense that the playwright did not quite know how to end this piece. The bad language is overdone. Sparky and amusing, yes, but it could have done with one more draft.