This is the final play in our 2024/2025                                                "SIX OF THE BEST OF BRITISH CLASSIC PLAYS" season

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It is a deeply-moving, mystical yet hilarious play in which the socially-inept Felix, a Cambridge research fellow, returns to his Cotswold family home after his father’s death to find that his mother, the appalling Flora, has disposed of all his father’s belongings, including his bees, and is contemplating re-marriage.

But what does string theory and the behaviour of bees have to do with all of this?

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Winner! 2001 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

​Winner! 2001 The Critic's Circle Best New Play Award

Winner! 2001 The People's Choice Best New Play Award

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CAST

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FLORA –  JOY BLAKE

JIM – MICHAEL MACKEY

GEORGE – PETER BENNETT

MERCY – CAROLE ALLEN

FELIX – ALEX WELSFORD

ROSIE -  ANNE CHARBEL

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Bournemouth Little Theatre – Review of Humble Boy by Charlotte Jones

By Daniel Paton (Thursday 12th June 2024)

 

“Humble Boy”, a play written by Charlotte Jones in 2001, comes to the Bournemouth Little Theatre as part of its English Plays season directed by Lindsay Jones.

 

The play takes place at the Humble family home during the 90s, following the death of James Humble, the family’s patriarch. What is left is a vacuum, a black hole; something which his son, Felix Humble – a soft, neurotic, theoretical astrophysicist from Cambridge – must come to accept. All while navigating his dysfunctional family relationships; namely his once-upon-a-time model mother and her new lover.

 

Director, Linday Jones, cast his play incredibly well. Under his direction, the cast’s exquisite interplay brings Humble Boy’s rich text to life; chock-full of funny and poignant moments. The garden dinner party immediately comes to mind, with its very own brand of Hitchcockian suspense involving some “spiced up” soup, which had the audience in stitches. These raucous scenes contrasted nicely throughout with the more reflective ones that kept the play grounded.

 

Alex Welsford was excellent as the play’s lead - the stuttering, socially awkward Felix. Welsford did well to traverse the nuance of Felix’s tortured character. At times brilliant, other times morose or acerbic. These subtle shifts in behaviour and speech gave real depth.

 

Felix is as much defined by his opposites. Joy Blake plays every bit of Felix’s superficial, distant mother, Flora. Flora is the perfect foil to deep-thinking Felix; desperately trying to hold on to her youth, and her new nose. Equally, Peter Bennett’s turn as George Pye, Flora’s new beau; pitched perfectly the bombastic “square peg in a round hole” set against the quaint countryside and Felix’s character.

 

Helping Felix along his emotional journey is ex-girlfriend Rosie Pye played brilliantly by Anne Charbel. Through Charbel’s assured performance, it becomes clear who Felix once was (or still is). Flora’s ever-faithful friend, Mercy, played expertly by Carole Allen, knows how to push the audience’s buttons, providing much of the play’s comic relief. Michael Mackay gives a beautifully nuanced performance as Jim the gardener and carries the play’s emotional heart.

 

Special mention goes to Alan Lodge and Zayd Bessalem, who play a young Felix’s father and a young Felix respectively. The pair open the piece and without words draw the audience in as they watch the moon landing together. Incredibly touching.

 

Set designer, Alastair Griffith and Jones have conceived a beautiful set for Humble Boy, replete with vibrant green hues synonymous with the English countryside, topped off with on-stage beehive. The sound design (Jones and Martyn Savage) is equally well thought out. Jones’s clever use of the “bees” was of particular note.

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Humble Boy is an interesting play and hard to pin down thematically, maybe that’s the point.

 

Perhaps it gives us a glimpse at how complicated and opaque life can seem at times - messy family dynamics or the inner workings of the universe.

 

Yet at the same time, we see how wonderfully simple it all can be too.

 

Maybe stop and smell the flowers sometime soon, eh?

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