REVIEW: Taking Steps - The Garrick Theatre, Stockport.

Now in his eighties, Alan Ayckbourn is widely acknowledged to be one of the world’s most successful living playwrights. Most of Ayckbourn’s eighty-plus plays, (he has just premiered his eighty fourth), have been written to be performed in the round at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where for over forty years he was Artistic Director. For the opening play of its new season, the Stockport Garrick has chosen Ayckbourn’s twenty fourth play, 'Taking Steps', which since it premiered in 1979 has become one of his most enduring and popular plays.

'Taking Steps' is set in a crumbling Country House. When I have previously seen the play performed in the round, actors have mimed to great comic effect running up and down stairs. For this production, director, David Glindon has wisely chosen to stage the play on one level and his decision pays comic dividends, especially when characters supposedly on different floors narrowly miss bumping into each other.

Ayckbourn dedicated this play to Ben Travers, the master of English farce and the plot has echoes of classic British comedies such as See How They Run and Rookery Nook. At the beginning of the play Lizzie, a recently retired dancer tells her brother Mark, an infuriating bore that she is leaving her husband, Roland a wealthy businessman, to resume her career in show businesses. Having been jilted on the day of his wedding, Mark is eagerly awaiting the return of his former finance, Kitty who has been arrested for soliciting in London. Add to these eccentrically drawn characters, a down at heel local builder and a shy, bumbling, solicitor, who arrives to sort out Roland’s legal paperwork, and the stage is set for an evening of buffoonery, improbability, semi-nudity and mistaken identity, all staple ingredients of classic farce.

Comic acting and in particular farce, is universally regarded as being amongst one of the hardest theatrical genres to master as it requires intense concentration and slick comic timing. In the main, (a few distracting prompts aside), the cast succeeded in making the most of the play’s inherent comedy especially the laugh out loud moments and sophisticated wordplay. By far the most engaging and entertaining performances were from James London as Tristram, the incompetent, solicitor whose wide eyed naivety was a joy to behold and Adam Green as Mark, whose comic timing was excellent. Special mention also to Sheridan Pedersen, who in the small role of Kitty, Mark’s former submissive fiancée, gave a moving performance as a fragile and troubled young woman who amidst all the ensuing chaos discovers her own voice.

After a break of several years, I am enjoying seeing plays at the Stockport Garrick again. On arrival the front of house staff are always welcoming and overall the performances and production values are of a high standard. At the end of the play I overhead one audience member say, “I enjoyed that, I needed a good laugh,” and praise doesn’t really come much better than that.

Reviewer - Richard Hall

on - 12/9/18