Close window 5 AUGUST 2005

Theatre Time and Time Again Stephen Joseph, Scarborough SAM MARLOW

UNHAPPY families and fraught sexual relationships — Alan Ayckbourn’s staple themes are very much to the fore in his 1971 comedy. There’s also a prevailing sense of rage and desperation that elevates Time and Time Again from suburban farce to bitter reflection on the ability of men and women to hurt and disappoint one another. Leonard, a depressed and directionless ex-teacher, lives with his sister Anna and her odious husband Graham. So emotionally isolated that he prefers the company of a garden gnome to that of human beings, Leonard is revitalised when Graham invites a young employee, Peter, and his pretty fiancée Joan back for tea. In a bid to impress Joan, Leonard agrees to take part in some of energetic Peter’s various sporting activities, despite his lack of any athletic ability. Joan — whose attachment to Peter is one of convenience as much as affection — is touched, and the two begin an affair, to the jealous fury of Graham and Anna’s anxious disapproval. But Leonard’s love and commitment turn out not to go much deeper than the garden pond. He spouts romantic poems, but knows only the first two lines; he genuinely cares for Joan, but never considers her feelings. Meanwhile Graham is fixated with her and takes no trouble to hide this from his drained and defeated wife; and Peter sees Joan as a trophy to be fought over. The setting is resoundingly Seventies — people eat flan and use phone boxes — and there’s a politeness about the play, even in its nastier moments, that feels rather quaint. But the fundamental ghastliness of the characters’ behaviour still stings, and Ayckbourn’s production balances every laugh with a wince. Giles New is a rueful, beanpole Leonard whom you long to shake out of his apathy, and John Branwell’s masterly Graham is an unselfconscious grotesque. Corpulent and gallumphing, he is oblivious to the ludicrous creepiness of his groping Joan, to the disgust that greets his undisguised attempts to humiliate Leonard and to the quiet ridicule that meets his every pompous pronouncement. Flopped in a deck chair in vest and braces, a used hanky over his face, he is the very embodiment of masculine undesirability. Then again, there’s not one among this bunch of emotional walking wounded you’d want to take home. But they’re still worth watching. Box office: 01723 370541