Joy Watters reviews the 'pitch perfect' co-production between Dundee and Birmingham Reps.
The stunning thing about Alan Ayckbourn’s 1985 work is that from the moment the lights go up, it takes an audience into the mind of a woman who is at breaking point. It is the gradual reveal of where reality lies that is so gripping in the extraordinary comedy which is both hilarious and disturbing.
The woman, Susan, is flat out on the grass having stood on a garden rake, insisting she is fine when she is far from it. It then appears we are in an uber-Ayckbourn middle England, where Susan is happily surrounded by her beautiful family, husband, daughter, brother, clothed in white, gliding about with champers and cut-glass English accents. The action then seismically shifts to show this is not Susan’s real family but a dream she has created to obliterate the truth, namely a dull clergyman husband, his demanding sister and a silent secretive son, all Scots.
Marilyn Imrie’s production is pitch perfect, beautifully building to the collision between Susan`s two worlds as she uncontrollably drifts between them. Imrie effortlessly meets the challenge of Ayckbourn’s writing, be it farce or the terror of going mad.
This joint production between Dundee and Birmingham Reps boasts a stunning ensemble, at the heart of which is the wonderful Meg Fraser as Susan, grasping the challenging lead with heart and head. She is very funny as her irritation with her real family builds, but it is intermingled with her growing panic and pain as she realises she is losing her mind.
Neil McKinven as her doctor, Bill, is outstanding as he gets drawn into her mad world, capturing the medic’s growing bemusement and desire to please her. In a clutch of winning performances, the ensemble captures the sheer hilariousness of the disjointed family hopelessly fighting to keep it all together while each individual is totally self-obsessed.
It is all set against Ti Green’s design, which brings together a beautiful Midsummer Night’s Dream-like setting for the imagined family and a strange no-man’s-land for the nightmare that is Susan’s real life.
Runs at Dundee Rep until Saturday June 7 and Birmingham Rep June 13 to 28.
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