A FAMILY GATHERING FROM HELL
Hatched ‘n’ Dispatched (Park Theatre, London)
Verdict: A drunk delight Flare Path (Richmond and touring)
FVerdict: Finally takes off
AMILY tensions in lateF-ifties East Midlands are put to comic effect in a superbly acted play at the Park. Coronation Street’s Wendi Peters and Vicky Binns are in a cast which, amid gramophone strains of Cliff Richard and Mantovani, barely puts a lacquered eyebrow wrong.
Miss Peters is Dorothy, a sixtysomething monster of the lower middleclasses. Dorothy’s family assembles for a wake. Drink is taken. Truths are blurted. It all becomes woundingly messy, yet the imperious Dorothy is determined that she will retain power.
Imagine Hyacinth Bucket after five pints of snakebite. Social climber Dorothy is crazy about her indolent son. She drops the names of acquaintances who live in a genteel part of her not-so-posh town.
Simpering with smugness, fussing over her hairdo, she is part Alan Bennett, part Lady Bracknell. But for the almost karaoke-ish echoes of Patricia Routledge’s great TV creation Hyacinth, Miss Peters’s performance would merit the highest acclaim.
GEMMAPAgE and Michael Kirk write with notable polish. The show is performed in one of the Park’s studios and the audience is so close to the action that every quiver of lip (and more) can be seen.
As the family gets stuck into sherry, beer, green Chartreuse and Snowballs with maraschino cherries, dark secrets are laid bare. Slapstick, sexual farce, pop nostalgia, cruel chauvinism: here is a nicely garish domestic fist-chewer.
It may be unfair to select anyone from an ace cast but Wendy Morgan is outstanding as Dorothy’s widowed younger sister, Irene. While being bullied and betrayed, once-glamorous Irene gives flickers of gaiety, quivering smiles of desperation — even while her family is boozing and groping.
The thing which prevents me hailing a modern classic is that, beyond a desire to make us laugh at the awfulness of the pre-Beatles era, no noble theme is discernible.
The play needs a better title, too. As the final moments slip into bad language, we are offered little hint of artistic hope. Just sharp entertainment.
SIR TEREnCE RATTIgAn was a laureate of self-repression, word- painting the English bitten lip as surely as Constable captured its landscapes.
The startling fact about his play Flare Path, which depicts the romantic turmoil and operational terror of RAF bomber crews and their wives in World War II, is that it was first staged in London at the height of that conflict.
Sir Winston Churchill attended its first night, as did numerous Air Marshals.
The latest production is not perfect. It takes a while to become airborne and there are times when the acting is not good enough to overcome the dialogue’s dated creakiness.
Eventually, however, the story works its magic.
All three acts are set in the Falcon Hotel near a Lincolnshire aerodrome. The hotel is home to bomber crew members including the decently dull Flight Lieutenant graham (Alastair Whatley), rear gunner Sergeant Miller (Simon Darwen) and a Polish airman, Count Skriczevinsky (Adam Best).
The Count is married to brassy ex-barmaid Doris (Siobhan O’Kelly). graham is married to Patricia, an elegant actress (Olivia Hallinan).
The scene is invaded by Hollywood idol Peter Kyle, who has come to see graham’s wife. Leon Ockenden is disappointing as Kyle. He is not bold or big enough to radiate the star’s raffish charm.
THEsecond half, happily, is a beefier affair as we see the bravery of the RAF crews contrasted with the selfishness of smarmer Kyle.
graham’s character has by now become more interesting — for we have seen his flaws.
Mr Whatley puts on a strong burst as Rattigan allows us a glimpse of this young man’s emotional innards.
For all these quibbles about Justin Audibert’s production, which should improve on its tour, the story is so redolent of a great moment in British history it is impossible not to be lured by the romance of sacrifice and self-discipline which was embodied by the RAF.
For tour information, visit flarepaththetour.com