Photo: Geraint Lewis
cast list:
Jodie McNee, Peter Sandys-Clarke, Lynda Baron, Laura Haddock, Tom Shaw, Roy Hudd, David Horovitch, Susie Blake, Simon Rouse, Sam Kelly, Maureen Lipman, Michele Dotrice, Rosemary Ashe, Vincent Bramble
directed by
Christopher Luscombe
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Amidst his impressive portfolio, J. B. Priestley is known for such groundbreaking works as The Linden Tree, a post-war masterpiece of British theatre.
By no measure could his 1938 creation, When we are Married, be regarded as groundbreaking. A straight forward drawing room farce, it feels not so much a masterpiece as a museum piece.
But museums can be interesting places to visit, and, not for the first time, this artefact has been taken from its vault, dusted down, and proudly put on display. In the overall scheme of things it may be more on a par with Rolf Harris than Raphael, but it remains an exhibit worth seeing.
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The premise is simple enough. Three well-to-do couples gather one September evening in 1908 to celebrate their joint twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. It suddenly transpires, however, that the minister presiding over the triple ceremony had no authority to marry them, and all sorts of antics ensue as the six try to cope with the scandal and embarrassment. Things are compounded when the recently dismissed housekeeper shouts her mouth off to the town, the photographer booked to capture the anniversary wades into the action, and one of the husband’s sweethearts of yesteryear turns up.
The play considers what might happen when people who have been tied by an unbreakable bond for so long are suddenly offered the possibility of freedom. On the one hand, as the photographer argues, if two people have stayed together for a quarter of a century there must have been something going right. On the other hand, if the main thing holding them together (the act of marriage) is suddenly removed from the equation will the opportunity for escape be seized upon?
The three couples all have their own axes to grind, but the most entertaining pair to watch are Herbert and Clara Soppitt. Beautifully played by Sam Kelly and Maureen Lipman, much hilarity ensues when the eternally hen-pecked husband suddenly finds himself rebelling when freed from the ties that bind.
Priestley has a good nose for pace, piling on the introduction of new characters so as to build up momentum and generate an increasing number of laughs. This said, things take a little while to warm up, and nothing subsequently beats the first half of Act Two for sheer hilarity. There is also one key difficulty in the script. While the Soppetts’ issues with each other are clear, in the first half it is not so apparent where the difficulties lie between the other two couples. In the case of the Parkers (Simon Rouse and Michele Dotrice) this is explained in Act Two, but the tensions in the Helliwells’ relationship (David Horovitch and Susie Blake) remain underexplored throughout. The three couples do not all necessarily require equal stage time, but the number of marital angles explored feels more limited than it could be.
The performances, however, remain strong, and there is superb support from Lynda Baron as the forthright housekeeper, Roy Hudd as the photographer, Jodie McNee as the maid and Rosemary Ashe as the old flame. And as for Simon Higlett’s set, decked out with pictures and ornaments to capture the clutter of an Edwardian drawing room, that stands as a work of art in its own right.
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London reviews
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