On one level, Alan Ayckbourn’s 90th play is a sprightly comedy featuring a play within a play, itself described as “a sprightly comedy”. On another level it’s an exploration of the nature of imagination. What marks the difference between an individual who imagines themselves surrounded by people who are not there and a group of people who come together to pretend something is that is not?
As ever, Ayckbourn does not present his audience with ideas, but with people trying to work their way through situations that both are and are not of their own making. An elderly man, Jack, wants to surprise his wife on her birthday; his friend, Ben, is helping him. A struggling theatre company that specialises in performing plays in people’s homes is touting for custom. Is their comedy what Jack is looking for?
As the action progresses (rather bumpily, in the first half), we discover that Jack’s marriage is not as he presents it; bashful Ben has hidden depths; the theatre company is riven by ideological clashes as well as being an actor short of the full troupe.
In the tradition of it’ll be alright on the night, the show does go on. It’s very funny. We can laugh and enjoy it just for what it is. Dramaturgically speaking, though, something more is happening. By presenting a comedy set in a drawing room within drawing room, on the SJT’s theatre-in-the-round stage, Ayckbourn melts notions of a fourth wall into thin air (something Kevin Jenkins’s set does visually). Come the curtain call (for both plays), boundaries between actors and characters, between real and imagined audiences are dissolved. All are involved in a collective act of make-believe.
A five-strong cast realises Ayckbourn’s vision, which he directs. Each performs admirably, but special mention to Olivia Woolhouse on a sprightly professional debut and to Paul Kemp who, in the linchpin role of Ben, is simply magnificent.
• Show & Tell is at the Stephen Joseph theatre, Scarborough, until 5 October.
