Last Tango in Little Grimley by David Tristram. the players company directed by Liz Bradley. UCU Theatre, The Hub, University of Canberra, October 3 - 4, 12.40 and 5.40pm.
This was a tits and wiggles show in which, in the strict tradition of very light English farce, we never got to see any tits, but there was an inconsequential wiggle right at the end. Written on the premiss that provincial English people are still as immature about secondary sexual signals as they have always pretended to be, this production was no more than the brief lunchtime interlude between glasses of wine that it pretended to be - at least the wine on offer in the foyer was real.
Liz Bradley's direction was effective in principle, but I have to say that it was only Marie Carroll as Joyce who had the required apparently natural timing in the opening performance. Her forte Oh What a Beautiful Morning lying in a putative bath exposed to the inevitable Vicar was just the right unbearable length to get the audience thoroughly laughing, rather than "smiling internally" like Little Grimleyites.
The twists in the plot of the players company playing the failing Little Grimley Amateur Dramatic Society rehearsing Last Tango in Little Grimley are fairly predictable, with just a little dig at making money - for the first time in the Society's history - when all the respectable locals turn up to see a breast revealed. I think it's fair to say that the players company has not followed their founder's precept in choosing this play, even for a light lunchtime entertainment.
Charles Glyn-Daniel sadly died before this year's major productions were completed - R.C.Sherriff's Journey's End and Shelagh Stephenson's The Memory of Water. He had a clear policy of presenting less well-known but worthwhile works by British playwrights, even for the brief filler events at The Hub, choosing John Mortimer's Lunch Hour and Knightsbridge.
David Tristram is not well-known, and doesn't deserve to be. I think if the players company wants to maintain its good early reputation, especially in the university scene, it must choose short comedies for lunchtime with much more bite than Last Tango in Little Grimley.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
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