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Theatre listings >
Absurd Person Singular
Playwright - Alan Ayckbourn
Director - Ian Grieve
Set Designer - Trevor Coe
Costume Designer - Monika Nisbet
Lighting Designer - Mark Pritchard
Company - Pitlochry Festival Theatre Company 2002
Venue - Pitlochry Festival Theatre www.pitlochry.org.uk
01796 484626
By the banks of the River Tummel, their theatre has most beautiful setting.
Pitlochry is about 2hrs easy drive from Edinburgh + has lots of hotels
and B+Bs. When theatre is open Restaurant booking advised 01796 484626
for dinner also Bar and Coffee Bar.
EdinburghGuide Pitlochry
Festival Theatre Page with last season's reviews and info
Dates - see end of review
Run Time 2hrs 45 mins including two 20 minute intervals
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Fine actors, newly started or well seasoned, delight and develop
Absurd Person Singular - Pitlochry Festival Theatre Production
Ronald, Martyn James, Eva, Jo Freer and Sidney, Moray
Treadwell
© Keith Brame 2002
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Christmas is a time when tensions are high and we gather for drinks and
sometimes destruction of friendships and relationships. In Ayckbourn's
Absurd Person Singular three couples meet on three successive Christmas
Eves in the early 1970's. Each time they gravitate to the hosts' kitchens
where the Pitlochry design team excel with telling period detail.
The Hopcrofts' is the first we see, as the rain pours down outside. Inside
Jane, Helen Logan, frantically tries to keep order and her surfaces
clean as husband Sidney, Moray Treadwell practises scratching backs
that'll let him get on and up. Treadwell and Logan are shockingly,
hilariously accurate as the couple we've all met and tried to avoid since
- childishly eager to fit in, obsessively myopic and too tense you think
to know how to enjoy life. But later Ayckbourn masterfully shows us even
this couple have some tricks for life we could learn. Their troubles really
begin when Sidney finds Jan hasn't followed orders and has forgotten to
lay in the tonic and his Banker's wife, Marion Brewster-Wright could do
with some to go with her gin.
Next Christmas Eve, the curtain rises on the astonishing sight of the
Jackson's kitchen, and Eva Jackson, Jo Freer who's sitting alone,
in Che Guevara t-shirt and kimono. Architect husband Geoffrey, played
with rakish charm by Dougal Lee, arrives and talks at her, not
a flicker of anything does she give him, or later their nearly forgotten
guests. Freer's Eva never speaks but Freer's fine performance ensures
this act is the soul of this heartbreakingly funny play. The Hopcrofts
and the Brewster-Wrights try to help while the Jackson's dog, unseen but
not unheard, keeps them at bay as they try to recover something from the
Jacksons' disorder, at increasing peril to themselves.
Finally we see the Banker's Aga-ed Kitchen, where Ronald Brewster-Wright,
Martyn James whose acting credit is deservedly high, finds himself
entertaining everyone including his marvellously glamorous wife, Marion,
a diamond carat performance by Anne Kidd. Seen on its first night
this production, directed with acute flair by Ian Grieve, shows why Pitlochry
continues to draw people to its special top notch performances and productions
where you can see fine actors, newly started or well seasoned, delight
and develop.
© Thelma Good 23 May 2002
Dates of performances of Absurd Person Singular in Pitlochry Festival
Theatre's 2002 Season
23rd May (2pm), 23rd May (8pm), 25th May (8pm), 31st May (8pm),
4th June (8pm), 5th June (2pm), 8th June (8pm), 13th June (8pm),
17th June (8pm), 21st June (8pm), 25th June (8pm), 26th June (2pm),
28th June (8pm),
3rd July (8pm), 6th July (2pm), 16th July (8pm),
17th July (2pm), 22nd July (8pm), 27th July (2pm),
3rd August (8pm), 6th August (8pm), 7th August (2pm), 12th August
(8pm),
22nd August (8pm), 24th August (2pm), 31st August (8pm),
4th September (8pm), 10th August (8pm), 11th September (2pm),
16th September (8pm), 21st September (2pm), 27th September (8pm),
1st October (8pm), 2nd October (2pm), 7th October (8pm),
12th October (8pm), 16th October (8pm), 19th October (2pm) Run of Absurd
Person Singular ends
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