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REVIEW | Still Life, Theatre Royal Drury Lane Theatre - London
AD | Tickets gifted in exchange of an honest review. All Views are our own
For less than a week only, the Grand Saloon Bar at Theatre Royal Drury Lane transforms into the refreshment room of Milford Junction railway station, where Noël Coward’s Still Life is set.
Directed by Tam Williams, produced by Sally Hughes, the two-hour show starts with a quintessentially English afternoon tea, with an array of coffee's and tea's to choose from, accompanied by savoury sandwiches, tartlets, pastries and confections. The audience is seated in “carriages”, small tables for two, so if you come to the show alone, you might find yourself making a new acquaintance, just like the main protagonists do in the play, making the audience feel immediately immersed in the world of the story.
Still Life follows the episodic love affair between Laura Jesson (Rachel Pickup), a housewife with three children, and Alec Harvey (Alasdair Craig), a married physician. The story unfolds over roughly a year, with every scene taking place on a Thursday, when Laura goes shopping, and Alec travels to the hospital where he works once a week. What starts as a brief encounter develops into cinema dates, secret meetings in empty flats and moments together away from people who know them, eventually leading to a relationship that cannot flourish as Alec is called to work in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Around the central romance, we also meet several colourful railway-station characters. Myrtle Bagot (Elizabeth Elvin), while busy running the station refreshment buffet, repeatedly tries to fend off the ticket inspector Albert Godby (Antony Jardine), who takes every opportunity to flirt with her. Beryl Waters (Seren Sandham-Davies) assists Myrtle, and the two often pass the time by breaking into songs, accompanied by Waters on the piano and trumpet. These characters bring plenty of humour and energy to the production and give the station a lively and more real atmosphere beyond the central love story.
Rachel Pickup gives a particularly strong performance as Laura, playing a woman who is initially overcome with the excitement of an unexpected love, but who gradually has to face the reality of having cheated on her husband and the consequences this could have for her dignity and social standing as a woman in the 1930s. Such worries don’t seem to have the same weight for Alec, who often seems superficially aware of Laura’s preoccupations. Pickup gives Laura a touching range of emotions, moving between excitement, guilt, hope and sadness. I was glad to be sitting in the right spot when the emotional culmination of their complicated situation finally broke down and unfolded in front of my half-finished cup of tea.
The staging is an interesting idea and, unfortunately, one of the production's weaker aspects. Director Tam Williams has the clear intention to create an immersive experience, with the audience seated at tables around a large central bar while the actors move in and around it. While a clever concept, the actual setting of the Grand Saloon Bar in the Theatre Royal Drury Lane hinders it. There is often something to miss when the action moves to the opposite side of the bar. The tables are quite low while the central bar, with its coffee machine and various bits and pieces, can obscure most of the view. The sound also becomes noticeably weaker the further away the actors are, making it difficult at times to follow what is happening as you cannot visualise it either.
The idea itself is great, but it’s a pity that this venue is not quite right to make this particular staging work as well as it could. The actors certainly do their best, spending much of the show rushing around and seemingly taking thousands of steps to make sure everyone has a similar experience no matter their seats. The cast of Still Life as a whole is strong, with Pickup and Craig carrying the emotional weight of the central relationship, while Sandham-Davies, Jardine and Elvin bring humour, music and plenty of personality to the supporting roles. They also manage to make their different characters, as they cover 2 or 3 each, feel distinct and well-rounded, it's certainly a different theatre outing, combining afternoon tea with an unusual immersive experience, and it is worth catching before it ends.
★★★★
Still Life plays until September 12th at Theatre Royal Drury Lane: https://lwtheatres.co.uk/whats-on/still-life/
