9 -12 May
In this one man show Tom Marshman surrounds himself with his imaginary friends. Those friends are the stars of stage and screen, Kenneth Williams and Maggie Smith, themselves close friends and whose relationship Marshman describes as, ‘A shining intimacy’.
One feels, as a member of the audience, that one has been invited into Mr Marshman’s home for a private performance. Padding around barefoot in a pair of loose fitting slacks, we feel that he feels he is amongst friends; he’s not selling the show, there are no grand gestures which, given his self confessed childhood tendency to be a show-off is an interesting clue to his style. When being himself, that style is gentle and paced, precise without being precious. It’s like being tucked up in bed by nurse before being told a story about a couple of chums, albeit jolly famous ones. Two little cardboard proscenium theatres, complete with miniature cut-outs, are on hand to show us the stars on stage. Their ‘camp sensibilities’ are witty and arch, but their fundamental similarity, he suggests, is shown in the way that together they read John Betjeman’s poem, Death in Leamington, as if ’twin souls’ were merged into one.
The sagging melancholy of Betjeman’s poem seems to hang over the life of Kenneth Williams who uses the sense of seeping loneliness the poem captures as a kicking board, albeit – if his final words are any measure – without success. “What’s the bloody point”, he is reported to have gasped. But the show celebrates the way in which friends of a similar mind can create a world within the world. “In theatre the walls are padded against the world”, Ms Smith is quoted as saying. The show is Mr Marshman’s eulogy to friendship, a way of celebrating and keeping alive the memory of his own relationship with his sadly departed friend, Clare.
Projected onto a gauze we find videos of Mr Marchmant in the guise of his imaginary friends, each sat at their dressing room mirror. Here Tom Marchmant can spread his wings and indulge in some theatrical mimicry, bringing the ghostly images to life as each regales us with anecdotes while his corporeal self looks on. Kenneth Williams with his famous ability to switch from plummy snobbishness to wrinkled nose camp without pausing for breath, and Dame Maggie’s sharp wit of which stout parties should beware, are given diaphanous life.
Tom Marshman is an engaging performer with a unique talent and unique voice in theatre; A Shining Intimacy is a shining example of that talent at work.
★★★★☆ Graham Wyles, 10 May 2023
Photo credit: Vonalina Cake
