Bournemouth Little Theatre 
Bournemouth Little Theatre, Bournemouth 
JJ 
3 September 2024
It was good to be back at Bournemouth Little Theatre for the first show of the group’s 2024/25 season and with such a Noel Coward classic directed by Barry Gray. There was not a spare seat in the house, which was lovely to see.
We meet Sybil (Lauren Killham) recently married to Elyot (Topher Lynn), who shortly joins her, on the balcony of a hotel room in the South of France on their honeymoon. Sybil is set on interrogating Elyot about his ex-wife, Amanda. When they retire to their room, on the adjoining balcony, Amanda (Daisy Norton) appears closely followed by her new husband, Vincent (Sam Sheppard), who coincidentally are also on their honeymoon at the same hotel. The Coward comedy madness then begins!
It was a solid and confident opening night performance. Hats off to the cast (especially Topher and Daisy) for the mammoth line learning. It is a wordy play and you need to respect the wordsmith and the flow of the piece by performing them as written. Good job!
Elyot’s stage time was significant and it was a strong performance by Topher. Elyot is stated as being 7 years older than Sybil, although this difference wasn’t clear between Elyot and Sybil (and indeed Amanda). Elyot became too vocally hysterical and physically frenetic at times which detracted from the overall performance and pushed the innate Coward campness too far. Unfortunately, my perception of Elyot was not helped by his costumes – every jacket he wore seemed just too big, and it was difficult to believe that either Sybil or Amanda could ever have fallen for him.
Amanda is a similarly large part and I fundamentally enjoyed Daisy’s portrayal. She has great stage presence but her character seemed in constant motion, which was distracting. Being still and assured can often create more humour. That said, her costumes were beautiful!
Sybil and Vincent are difficult parts being essentially the straight foils for the comedy of Elyot and Amanda. Lauren gave a measured and effective performance as Sybil. There should have been a more romantic mood between her and Elyot to start with – it was their honeymoon after all – and I did not detect any real affection between the two. Sam was solid as Vincent, but again chemistry was lacking between him and Amanda. As a result, it was difficult to have much sympathy for the appalling treatment they received. The fight between them at the end of Act 3 was good, but Vincent became a little too angry vocally, which meant some of his lines were lost.
There was a nice turn by Alice Hannibal as the maid, Louise in Act 3. Well done maintaining the French!
Act 1 was far too long, particularly in the furnace heat of the theatre. It became quite laboured, but the well-choreographed and executed fight scene at the end of the Act was worth waiting for. The extended and, I accept, unavoidable, scene change between Act 1 and Act 2 (some 3-4 minutes) did not help. The French apartment set was, however, excellent when it appeared.
There was a limit to the movement possible in Act 1 due to the nature and constraints of the space. However, there was good use made of the entire French apartment set by the director.
For a period piece and particularly for a Coward play, the characterisations need to be of a certain, often quite affected type. Playing too much with those limitations means some of the extremely funny lines lose their potency and comedy. You should feel the tension, anger and frustrations by verbal delivery rather than see it physically represented. There seemed to be too much latitude in this regard. Also, there was some loss of diction due to the very fast line delivery!
Some of these observations may be down to first-night nerves (which weren’t otherwise obviously apparent) and hopefully as the run progresses the cast will settle into the piece and focus more on the absolutely delicious lines. Despite my own reservations, the play was well received by the audience, many of whom marvelled at the commitment that had been required to pull it off!
The play performs every night this week at 7:45pm finishing on Saturday 7th September. Judging by the packed house tonight, good luck in getting tickets!
