Time and Time Again

Cause for celebration at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, which is 50 years old this year. What better way to party than plough through Alan Ayckbourn’s back catalogue?
Time and Time Again, penned way back in 1971, gets the affectionate treatment. Michael Holt’s lush set - a garden and conservatory number of the kind the venue does so well - John Pattison’s familiar musical stylings and an ensemble so well versed in the Ayckbourn oeuvre they look totally at ease throughout. This is what everyone appears to want when they walk into this theatre.
The audience, many of whom look as if they saw the show the first time around, lap this comedy up like a cat at a bowl of milk. Belly laughs aplenty ring round the venue when John Branwell’s obnoxious, sexist Graham gets a well deserved dunking in the garden pond and the punters applaud every scene’s conclusion. Even world weary wife Anna’s (Eileen Battye) conversational pauses garner chuckles.
The cast excel. Giles New is so naturalistic a performer that he doesn’t appear to be acting at all, Laura Doddington as Joan - the object of affection for all three male characters - demonstrates the traits of seventies women, on the verge of true empowerment but slightly afraid to leap, while Neil Grainger must have spent hours around competitively sporty and stupid types to perfect his character, Peter.
Not much wrong then, with this particular piece from the vast Ayckbourn archives if nostalgia and wading in a glorious past is what you are after. However Time and Time Again does, 34 years later, appear to be something of an anachronism. The times certainly have changed in the intervening years, although the bulk of the appreciative audience would probably disagree.

Dave Windass