5 STARS, May 1-5. Hilarious, inventive and brilliant rep at the Thorndike Theatre this week – no spoilers – just go and see Ayckbourn at his best!
When you go to an Alan Ayckbourn play, you know you can expect surprises, laughs and high quality entertainment. That’s what’s going down at Leatherhead, as its repertory season continues with “Communicating Doors”.
This is farce, science fiction and thriller in four dimensions! A young dominatrix, Phoebe, arrives in a hotel room to find a client who wants her for an unexpected role, outside her usual ‘job spec’. Soon she’s embroiled in a murder plot as witness to a confession to murder, potential victim and potential rescuer. The hotel suite where all the action takes place is static, but Phoebe and the two murder victims find themselves catapulted back and forth in time, through a time-warp in one of the suite’s communicating doors. The resulting action is hilarious, philosophically complex, and typically Ayckbourn.
The play was first staged in Scarborough in 1994 but it’s brought up to date and in a sense timeless (no pun intended.) Arriving fresh from 2018, Phoebe steps outside the hotel room in 1998 to find that a familiar shop has apparently been replaced by a DVD store; “Who the heck has a DVD player these days?” she exclaims.
The ensemble acting is brilliantly comic. Emma Mulkern, Holly Joyce and Francesca Bourgogne are Phoebe, the ineffectual dominatrix, edgy and comically nervous; Ruella, calm, stable wife and mother, and Jessica, the flighty young thing. Their dialogue sparkles and the denouement situation had all of us gasping and laughing at one and the same time.
Keith Hill as the villain of the piece is satisfyingly sinister and William Hazell, as Reece, carries off a tour de force as the same character in youth, middle age and dotage – and in two different time continuums! Peter Steele as gormless Harold is predictably scorned by all the females at all times!
The production and set are excellent, the hotel room that’s changed only by containing new clients contrasting with exciting transitions through the mysterious door, as the plot heats up and the pace quickens.
Absurdity piles upon absurdity – we couldn’t wait to find out how the situation would be resolved. Would this be one of those dark Ayckbourn endings? The characters are in the same quandary: questions about time, identity and sequencing are part of Ayckbourn’s repertoire of themes.
The evening is so full of surprises, tension and hilarious situations, I don’t want to write any spoilers. Just go and see it, for a great Ayckbourn experience from this talented rep company. Long may they continue to delight audiences in this wonderful little theatre.
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