We were welcomed into the auditorium by middle-of-the-road, tuneful but bland seventies pop music. The music also played between scenes. To say I was racking my brain to remember the names of the groups would be an over-statement but, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember any of them. The music was pleasant enough, the tunes catchy and redolent of their time. But the songs and performers are long forgotten, only to be found on cut-price compilation CDs. Things have moved on, tastes change, attitudes differ.
Alan Ayckbourn’s plays are very seventies and have many of the same attributes as the bland pop that greeted us. It’s a pity there isn’t the theatrical equivalent of cut-price compilation CDs. I’d be very happy to fork out £1.99 to sit through plays that were once West End hits, that drew praise and were hailed as the greatest of their day. But then so were Showaddywaddy, Sweet and Mud.
In their day Ayckbourn’s plays were phenomenally successful with the man himself almost becoming a one-man theatre industry. Round and Round the Garden is part of the Norman Conquest trilogy which was the must-see London theatre event of 1973/4. Ayckbourn gathered a sort of West End rep company to perform his plays as they came tumbling off his typewriter – the likes of Tom Courtney, Penelope Keith and Felicity Kendal. The 1977 television version starred Penelope Keith, Tom Conti and Richard Briers. The play was revived to rave notices and many awards in 2009, again with an exceptionally strong cast.
Seeing the play now, without a star-studded cast reveals not only its age but also its weaknesses. Are we really interested in a bit of home-counties wife-swapping? It would be hard to dislike any play when you are watching a shed load of national treasure, top comedy actors perform it, but when it’s a cast of lesser known thespians, the cracks and age become evident.
Unlike the sixties, the 1970s have yet to take on the mantle of sexiness and most things related to it are considered a bit naff – witness the amount of beige in this production, not to mention the leather, backless driving gloves.
Round and Round the Garden is a pleasant enough diversion about boring people – or, at least, boring men – leading their hum-drum tedious lives as vets, estate agents and assistant librarians hoping for a bit of excitement and distraction by groping each other’s spouses. The problem was that without the star charisma the male characters really were boring and it was hard to imagine any of the women finding them the least bit attractive.
I am quite prepared to believe that such things went on in the suburban seventies on the road to East Grinstead but, to be frank, who cares? ★★★☆☆ Michael Hasted 27th January 2015
