Bedroom Farce – Connaught Theatre, Worthing

Writer: Alan Ayckbourn

Director: Sir Peter Hall

Reviewer: Ann Bawtree

The Public Reviews Rating:

Everyone going to an Alan Ayckbourn play expects to enjoy themselves and his Bedroom Farce is certainly no exception. The play’s title is a bit of a misnomer as this is not a bedroom farce in the Brian Rix or Carry On team sense. True the set, designed by Simon Higlett, is of three bedrooms, side by side and characters pop in and out of the doors with great rapidity.

On the left is a room which is all pink satin bed cover and silk lampshades and is the room of Delia and Ernest, played by Juliet Mills and Bruce Montague, who have reached a state of comfortable maturity after many years of marriage. The centre room is that of Malcolm and Kate in their newly acquired home with its unfinished wall paper and slightly ramshackle furnishings. A boisterous pair these, played by Ayden Callaghan and Julia Mallam, given to practical jokes and much larking around. The third setting belongs to Jan and Nick, (Clare Wilkie and Maxwell Caulfield) and speaks of every day comfort well suited to a couple with busy professional lives.

The connecting character for all three couples is Trevor, the over-indulged son of Delia and Ernest, ex-boyfriend of Jan and so an object of suspicion for Nick, annoying but beloved friend of Kate and Malcolm and husband of the neurotic, psycho-babbling Susannah.

The story unfolds over just one night, from about seven in the evening till 3am, almost giving a feeling of real time action. Although all three rooms are on stage simultaneously, scenes change rapidly by means of clever switches of lighting, designed by Peter Mumford.

The play was written in the 1970s and while the characters could be human-beings from any century it is impossible to update. Cordless telephones would take out much of the fun. Thankfully the costumes of Mark Bouman and Mia Flodquist, while evoking the era, have avoided flared jeans and droopy moustaches. Trevor tramples around on the lives of the other characters apparently unaware of the chaos he is causing. Witness the scene where he kneels between Kate and Malcolm, calmly eating a sandwich and staring up at each of them in turn like a child bewildered by the behaviour of grown-ups as they row about whether or not he should stay the night.

Many times there are murmurs of self recognition from the audience, none more so than when Delia gives her three point advice on the management of husbands to Susannah. A Feed him well, make sure he has clean clothes and don’t tell him anything you don’t have to. Written back in the days when the Top Twenty contained tuneful music, sound designer Gregory Clarke has set the scene with Latin American dance tunes including the well loved ACherry Pink and Apple Blossom White and we all left the theatre after a most enjoyable evening to the strains of A Chirpy chirpy cheap cheap.