SITE GUIDE
REVIEWS
FEATURES
NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings
LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway
NYC Restaurants
BOOKS and CDs
OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
DC
Philadelphia
Elsewhere
QUOTES
On TKTS
PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS
LETTERS TO EDITOR
FILM
LINKS
MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
Writing for Us
A CurtainUp 
Review
ReviewAuntie and Me
|
Why are you putting on make-up? Why don't you let the mortician do that?.
-- Kemp |
Kemp (Alan Davies) has responded to a letter written by his Aunt Grace (Margaret Tyzack) to say that she is old and dying. He is her last known relative. At first he misread her writing and thought the letter said that she was "yodelling" not old and dying. Not having seen his aunt for the last thirty years, there is little to bond these two, the old lady and the bank clerk who has given up his job to travel across the country to tend to his aunt. He sets up house with his aunt for the duration of her dying which turns out not to be as imminent as all that. In fact he is still there a year and a half later with auntie alive and well.
In the first few days he is measuring her out for her coffin, planning the funeral music and arranging the disposal of her property in an almost cold hearted, matter of fact way. "Let's not talk about anything depressing? Do you want to be cremated?" The first half is dominated by these one liners from Kemp's monologue, funny and cruel if you were to take them seriously. He builds a disastrous euthanasia machine. Well, only disastrous in that it fails to despatch his aunt and instead injures him! By the end of the play he has, without trying, become very fond of the old lady and plans a trip with her to France. Kemp has also changed into a nicer human being. He is a bit of an odd ball character. His home life seems to have been marred by his eccentric mother dressing him up in frocks due to her wanting to give birth not to a boy, but to a girl. His father was a manic-depressive magician who destroyed every illusion and who was given to suicidally digging his own grave.
Alan Davies holds the stage for all of the ninety minutes with not a word from his aunt for most of the first hour. He is superb, quirky but obviously socially inept, a loner who allows the audience to laugh, but never betraying that he is kidding. At one point he hangs out his laundry, five sets of identical pink shirts, brown trousers and black socks in a business-like fashion. Davies has that zany quality as he recounts his childhood and unconventional family life to his aunt. Maybe that comes of being brought up by a mother whose hands were "always pretty full . . . what with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other!" Margaret Tyzack, like the old hand she is, conveys many an emotion as the enigmatic auntie, whether eating interminable Butterscotch puddings or clicking the knitting needles with silent aside looks to the audience.
Anna Mackmin directs so that the whole is pacy and, despite the same joke being repeated in different forms, it does not dull the way one handers often can. The set is the depressing flowered and peeling wallpaper of Auntie's bedsit, dominated by her bed, her knitting and the window on the neighbours. The passage of time is conveyed with black outs and the falling of autumn leaves or snow or lighting changes like a series of cartoon clips.
Auntie and Me is not an important new play but it is a thoroughly enjoyable evening and a promising West End acting start for Alan Davies who will surely move on to greater plays. Auntie and Me has a superb twist to the plot which wild horses will not drag out of me.
| Auntie and Me
Written by Morris Panych Directed by Anna Mackmin Starring: Alan Davies With: Margaret Tyzack Designer: Hayden Griffin Lighting Designer: Andy Phillips Sound: Paul Arditti Running time: One hour thirty minutes without an interval Box Office: 020 7369 1736 Booking to 26th April 2003 Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 15th January 2003 Performance at the Wyndhams Theatre Charing Cross Road London WC2 (Tube Station: Leicester Square) |
Peter Ackroyd's History of London: The Biography
London Sketchbook
Somewhere For Me, a Biography of Richard Rodgers
At This Theater
Ridiculous!The Theatrical Life & Times of Charles Ludlam
The New York Times Book of Broadway: On the Aisle for the Unforgettable Plays of the Last Century
6, 500 Comparative Phrases including 800 Shakespearean Metaphors by CurtainUp's editor.
Click image to buy.
Go here for details and larger image.
