Noël Coward’s Still Life has been given a new life as this creative, catered performance, first produced at The Mill at Sonning as an immersive experience, now transfers to London.Rating
Unmissable!
The Theatre Royal Drury Lane hosts this reinvention of Noël Coward’s Still Life in their magnificent Grand Salon with its chandeliers, generous drapes, decorated pillars and substantial bar – all complemented with an additional afternoon tea. It is a feast in more ways than one! It’s a perfect backdrop for Sally Hughes’ production, delivered with efficient, imaginative direction by Tam Williams.
The experience starts promptly with all the style of a bygone age: bone china cups, crisp linen napkin, silver sugar tongs, pots of tea and a cake stand laden with tempting sundries. The catering staff provide smart, efficient service and endless comfort before a whistle blows, train noises sound and the play begins, with actors inhabiting the space to create a tea bar and refreshment room. The station master (played by Antony Jardine with delightful verve) and the waitress, Beryl (a versatile Seren Sandham-Davis), appear – both playing musical instruments as they set up the comic banter with a hint of romance. The frustration of attraction is added to with the arrival of Elizabeth Elvin playing Myrtle, the older, flirtatious tea bar manager. Elvin brings a levity to proceedings, capturing the period sense of class and aspiration with some comic timing. Enter the middle-class couple, she with a fleck of dust in her eye, he a doctor who lends a hand, and there we have it – Coward’s cauldron of simmering desire, restricted by class, gender and money, engendering guilt and deceit.
Coward uses the fleck in the eye device with such skill as Laura, played by Rachel Pickup with delightful charm and simplicity, stumbles somewhat blindly into uncharted feelings. This unfussy woman with a well-ordered life has a moment where a stranger, Alec, the doctor (played by the debonair Alasdair Craig), helps to remove the speck. Physically close, this in some ways intimate act means their longings collide and they both embark on a romantic encounter. Status, duty and desire, bravery and loss are all explored in Coward’s play with delightful charm and restraint. Pickup and Craig wrestle with feelings and social constraints that bring both clarity and confusion, giving performances of some complexity and allowing us to be torn, like them, by the dilemma of wanting something you cannot have – or that only comes at a very high price. They tread a fine path between light- and down-hearted.
With smart direction from Williams, the workers in the station and tearoom are not overlooked as they too have attractions which are played out by Sandham-Davis and Jardine in a range of lively and entertaining characters that serves Coward’s scrutiny of society and relationships well. This is particularly clear with the sharp and comic performance from Elvin who reflects an older voice, one of constraint. She manages expectations and is aware of order, function and responsibility but still she reaches out for intimacy.
Through the Coward lens, the war years of fear and frustration resonate, where longing and needs at times cannot be fully satisfied. The piece is remarkable for being light and airy, funny and slight. It’s tenderly entertaining while simultaneously sharp in its emotional observations of social dynamics reminding us where the power lies – all captured with slight melancholy in Beryl’s bittersweet song, ‘Hey Ho, if Love Were All…’ Interestingly, Still Life latterly inspired the enduringly popular Brief Encounter.
This production is rich and entertaining, with delightful performance that captures the wit and pathos of Coward in a different format that is altogether different to what was originally envisaged by the author. This combination of the tea, the reimagining of a unique venue and excellent entertainment elevates the work to another level – well worth a ticket!
Directed by Tam Williams
Produced by Sally Hughes
Stage Manager: Andrea Duncan
Sound Design by Graham Weymouth
Sound Ops by Max Marchment
Lights/sound/stage company: Samuel Gillingham-Laine
Still Life plays at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane until Saturday 12 September.
