REVIEW: CREATIVE COW PRESENTS…BORN IN THE GARDENS
Many theatre companies, when reviving a play that was first staged more than thirty years ago, would seek to update the piece with elaborate re-staging or contextual changes. Creative Cow’s triumph with Peter Nichols’ 1979 comedy is, in large part, down to the fact that they have remained faithful to the era and have staged the production accordingly.
That’s not to say that Born in the Gardens is a strictly nostalgic exercise and indeed Nichols’ play resonates with a 2012 audience with the political and economic parallels between then and now adding an extra dimension. The decision to produce this play now is extremely shrewd and reinforces the main themes of the piece quite beautifully.
Maud lives in Tudor Manor with her grown up son Mo where the pair share a rather eccentric but terribly content existence. Maud spends her days in conversation with the characters on her black and white television whilst Mo mixes a mind boggling assortment of cocktails, listens to jazz records and plays the drums. The death of Maud’s husband results in her other two grown up children coming home to mourn their father and to try and convince Maud and Mo to leave Tudor Manor.
The character of Maud is a brilliant comic creation and Katherine Senior provided the stand out performance of the night playing this sweet old lady. It’s Maud’s Malapropisms that lead to the biggest laughs (Michael Wave for microwave being my favourite) but Senior also manages to add a beautiful sympathetic depth to the role and ensures that the audience feel the same way about Maud as they might about their batty old aunty or nan.
Edward Ferrow as Mo is superb in reflecting the genuine love that the son has for his mother and the discomfort that results from the fact that his idyllic life in Bristol might have to change. Jonathan Parrish plays the conflicted eldest son, Hedley, with a heavy sense of responsibility and false arrogance. Rachel Howells’ Queenie is a wonderfully neurotic creation, freshly returned from California and a string of broken relationships.
The contrast between Maud & Mo and Hedley & Queenie forms one of the strongest themes of the play with the former pair being seen as odd and eccentric for wanting to stay in the family home and continue in their well established ways. Hedley and Queenie could both be described as successful people but with two solo scenes on the telephone we see that neither is happy and that their lives are far from what they would wish them to be.
It’s important to note that there is some racial language in the play that could be seen as offensive if this had been a script written today to reflect the 1970’s. However, Nichols wrote this piece at the end of the 70’s when such language was prevalent and it is, therefore, a brave and correct decision of the Creative Cow company to keep the language as written by the playwright.
Born in the Gardens is a wonderful production by a company that just keeps improving with every new play that they tackle. Small touring troupes like Creative Cow form a backbone to the British theatre industry and should be supported at every opportunity. I for one cannot wait to see what they do next. It is rumoured that a revival of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Rivals is on the cards for this hardworking company and after seeing Katherine Senior deliver the Malapropisms in this play with such aplomb I cannot wait to see her step into the role of Mrs M herself.
The production is touring throughout England until the end of June and a full listing of upcoming dates is available at www.creativecow.co.uk
Words: Tony Sharpe
