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TALKING HEADS A Chip in the Sugar Bed Among the Lentils A Lady of Lentils by Alan Bennett 12 July to 21 July 2001 Directed by Simone de Haas Cast List Review Reality Bites In A Satisfying Classic Alison Cotes - The Courier Mail - 18 July 2001 Talking heads are not fashionable these days, either on stage or television. We prefer action and interaction, snappy reality dialogue and repartee, rather than analytical monologues. Yet when Talking Heads, Alan Bennett's famous series of one-person shows, was first shown on television 13 years ago, they immediately won a devoted following as well as endless awards, and Mixed Company's current version of three of the best proves that their appeal doesn't date. Bennett's characters are those people we see on the bus or sitting in shopping centers, dull people in grey cardigans who immediately evoke the out-dated term "lower middle class", whom we imagine leading unreflective lives of quiet desperation. They are specifically English people, but they are also universal types, and as their stories unfold and they unwittingly reveal the devastating truth about themselves, we cease despising them and begin to ache for their inadequacies. People like me, who cherish old videotapes of Maggie Smith in Bed Among the Lentils, Patricia Routledge in Lady of Letters and Alan Bennett himself in A Chip in the Sugar, may approach the Brisbane version with some trepidation. But I was overjoyed to find Brad Ashwood, Bronwen Doherty, and especially Dale Murison, who had the unenviable task of not being Maggie Smith, all succeeding admirably. Director Simone de Haas wisely decided to let Bennett's incomparable prose create the characters, rather than asking her actors to create their own versions, and the result is as sad and moving a trio as you could wish. Brad Ashwood is the middle-aged single man who finds to his disgust that his elderly mother has taken up with an old boyfriend, who wants to push him out of the family home. Ashwood gets the tone so expertly that we want to stand up and cheer him when he wins his petty victory, even while we despise him for his lack of backbone. Dale Murison is the vicar's alcoholic wife, who has an affair with the beautiful young Indian proprietor of the off-licence in the next suburb. This is the funniest and the saddest sketch of them all, because the context is spelt out more fully - the smug clerical husband, the patronizing bishop, and the dreadful parish groupies who form the vicar's fan club. There are the seeds of real tragedy here, as she is finally belittled and destroyed, and Dale Murison shows how well she can transcend the dippy-professional-wife syndrome in which she's been trapped lately. As Irene, the nosy neighbour from hell who persecutes her neighbours with endless letters and complaints, Bronwen Doherty has the happiest and most ironic ending of all, for she is sent to prison where she acquires new skills and the chance of a new life, and it's good to see this role played just as effectively by a woman much younger than Patricia Routledge. With Mixed Company, you always know what you're getting - solid productions of good middle-of-the-road plays, strong production values, and actors who are totally in control of their material. They push no boundaries and try nothing tricky, but I promise that you'll find a night at Talking Heads infinitely satisfying. |
