Stomachs are tight, bottles are empty, and the night has just begun. JB Priestley’s cosy comedy is easy entertainment on a chilly evening, and Tim Sheader’s chucklesome production conjures the comforting feeling of sinking into an armchair by a fire and rewatching a quaint old classic.
Written in 1934 and set in 1908, this shenanigan-filled drama sees three middle-class Yorkshire couples smugly toasting their silver wedding anniversaries. Monied, mannered, and blindingly dressed by costume designer Anna Fleischle (all fine tweed and extravagant puffs of lace cuffs), their unravelling begins with the discovery that a mistake occurred 25 years ago. None of them are married after all.
The revelation, beautifully frozen between acts in a tableau set to Beyoncé’s Single Ladies, upends who they are to each other and themselves. Suddenly, the men’s positions of power are smashed alongside the fancy crockery, and the women discover they’re no longer burdened with duty and piles of their husband’s darning. The skill of both Priestley’s prose and this cast’s performances is in the succinct presentation of the characters’ cores. Particularly the belligerent Albert (Marc Wootton), timid Annie (Sophie Thompson) and hen-pecked Herbert (a stand-out Jim Howick), the last of whom gets as much gastric trouble from speaking back to his wife as he does from overdoing it on dinner.
The port keeps pouring and word of the ruckus gets around town. Noses upturn and lips purse as a host of new, lower-class characters hurl themselves on to the sofa for a slice of the scandal: the chipper charwoman (Janice Connolly), increasingly inebriated photographer (Ron Cook, with delightful physical comedy) and Blackpool gal Lottie (Tori Allen-Martin) who seems a little too familiar with one of the now unmarried men.
Priestley’s crisp, playful dialogue bounces every line off the same joke, but does so with charm. All is safe and pleasantly silly in this well-made production, if not uproariously so. The stakes are never too high, the tantrums never too long. As the night draws to a close, the couples are a little shaken, and all the better for it. Priestley’s play reminds us to do better by each other, to make the best of what we have – and, should any wedding days be drawing near, to double-check the paperwork so as to avoid a nasty surprise 25 years down the line.
