Even by the shaky standards of show-biz biography this production pushes its luck, not least in the casting of its lead man. Glenn Miller’s plane disappeared over the English Channel in 1944, when he was 40; Tommy Steele is in his eightieth year. Miller was leader of the most successful of the great swing bands; Steele is a one-time rock and roller, now long- established as a song and dance man. How can that possibly work?
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Of Mice and Men tells the story of George and Lennie, a pair of roving hired hands – bindle stiffs – as they arrive in a desolate farm in the middle of the Depression. George, the keen young go-getter, Lennie the cross he has to bear. But they have a dream, a dream of buying their own patch of dirt and, as Lennie’s mantra repeats, living off the fat of the land. Lennie is a couple of stalks short of a cornfield and his gentle giant status is constantly tested.
Read MoreWriter, Catherine-Anne Toupin shows a deft hand both in misdirection and in creating a frisson of sexual excitement. The package is darkly comic with a sad and tragic kernel. Apparently suffering some sort of psychotic episode resulting from the loss of a child, Alice keeps ‘hearing’ the cry of a baby. Her husband, Ben, does not of course and whilst solicitous to a degree, leaves her alone in the flat whilst going out to work. The appearance on the scene of their socially incontinent and pushy neighbours from across the hall, suggests a disruption to their lives, which could have a potentially beneficial outcome.
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Written and directed by artistic director Natalie Ibu, I Know… represents the company’s most ambitious production and tour so far. Ibu describes the motivation behind the play: “A transformative moment – where the play really found itself – was when I found out, over Facebook, that I had five half brothers in Nigeria that I didn’t know about. I found myself grieving five men that hadn’t died but were absent . . .
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The show starts with the cast wandering around a semi-lit stage as though testing out the sound props, but within one minute of the lights coming up you know that you are in safe hands. The four women engage with the audience with an easy professionalism and humour that puts everyone at their ease. It looks simple but requires excellent direction and much hard work. Every few minutes there is a new imaginative and amusing theatrical trick and the quick fire togetherness is always immaculate.
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As with all Pinter’s plays, we are never quite sure what is going on, who is doing what to whom, and why. The Birthday Party takes place in a drab and dreary sea-side boarding house (or is it?), run by deck-chair-man Petey and his mousey, compliant wife Meg whose sole purpose in life seems to be the providing of an nice breakfast. . . If you like Pinter you should grab this chance while you can, the next one may not be along for a while.
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