You might guess what kind of night you’re in for by To Have and to Hold’s fabulous opening: the first painstaking entrance in Richard Bean’s play is made on a Stannah stairlift. Yes, we’re in the territory of geriatric comedy, all lived-in bickering and endless offers of tea. This is Jack and Florence Kirk’s house in Wetwang, Humberside, where the nonagenarians are being visited by their grownup children Rob and Tina. Bean’s latest is about whether and how we value old people, and how they can be cut loose when the younger generation gets educated, migrates and climbs the class ladder.
Not cut very loose, mind you. The Kirks’ generational fractures are hairline at worst: they come across as a fond family, and for much of the first half, you’re waiting for a drama that stubbornly – or teasingly – refuses to materialise. From the writer of One Man, Two Guvnors, tonight’s offering is a case of One Play, Two Directors, with Richard Wilson and Terry Johnson sharing credit for a production that savours the claustrophobic comedy of elderly stasis, in lieu of narrative momentum.
