A play by Laurie Lee

Directed by Patricia Richardson

25th-30th October 2010 at 7.45pm

Synopsis:

The writer and poet Laurie Lee was born in 1914 and this story is of his growing up in the Cotswolds. 

It is an account of Laurie Lee's childhood in the village of Slad, Gloucestershire, England, in the period soon after the First World War. It chronicles the traditional village life which disappeared with the advent of new developments, such as the coming of the motor car, and also of the experience of childhood seen from many years later.

It is a warm and imaginative story with the very best of everything for the theatre.

Comedy, pathos, deep sadness and a heart that will move you to tears.

The Cast:

Review:

by Linda Kirkman, Scene One

I sometimes find it difficult to watch a dramatisation of a book I have previously read, as the characters have been created in my mind’s eye so anything different seems wrong. Luckily though, that did not apply in this instance as this particular work is not a book with which I am familiar.

It is an account of writer and poet Laurie Lee’s childhood in the village of Slad, Gloucestershire, in the period soon after the First World War, and chronicles the traditional village life that was to disappear with the advent of new developments such as the motor car, enabling people to travel to other places for their social life and jobs.

This adaptation by James Roose-Evans, lovingly and skilfully directed by Patricia Richardson, is an absolute delight. The set gives, to me at least, a hint of book pages, covered as it is with faint pieces of writing. It is highly effective yet simple, with a clever use of chairs to depict all manner of things, but it is the detailed script that really makes the scenes spring to life.

A trip to Weston-Super-Mare on a charabanc, with a subsequent merry-go-round ride; a picnic during which Mother tells the family of an old couple who had lived in a cottage where a dog rose has grown out of control; Granny Trill and Granny Wallon, who never speak despite being neighbours; the school in which one of the pupils drags off the head teacher; a church entertainment with a highly nervous compere, a most enthusiastic vicar and some splendid singers – surely a first for BLTC to have the audience singing along to a music hall type song, Grow Little Mushroom – and my favourite, in which the audience hears sinister noises and fears the worst, until it is revealed that the local goat has escaped again, were scenes that seemed so real that I almost felt part of them.

I cannot praise the cast highly enough. Tim Wallace-Abbot gives a real tour-de-force as the Narrator, the adult Laurie Lee looking back on his childhood, while the others (Georgina Waring, Matthew Brackstone, Beverley Beck, Hayley Tucker, Bethany Harris, Neil Mathieson and Christopher Carr) play one or more roles, all with absolute conviction.

Spot-on sound and lighting effects and excellent costumes add the finishing touches to this first-class production – but could someone please enlighten me as to why two of the lines of the National Anthem were transposed? Generally happy and glorious comes before long to reign over us, but in this instance, happy and glorious though the evening indeed was, that was not the case.