A group of Fulham WI members attended Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories at The Duchess Theatre. The play has received fantastic reviews from across the theatrical world but what did Fulham WI think? Here is a review of the play written by committee Member Amanda and it seems that those of us who did not attend sorely missed out.
Hymn and cocktail Sticks – This was an Alan Bennett double bill and which several of us went to see recently. Being fresh from the other Bennett play then on in London – People – I had rather mixed feelings as to what to expect as there he appeared to tackle a subject with which he was not entirely comfortable. However Hymn and Cocktail Sticks was right up his street, literally as it explored separately his childhood and early adult relationships with his parents. The first piece about his father had the added interest of a string quartet on stage to accentuate and compliment the monologue. The sense of not fitting in was the overarching theme of the two plays and a common one for most people as the grass always appears a different colour from the other side. Bennett’s father had been a butcher who played the violin for pleasure and the boy Bennett coveted this instrument, when finally lessons started, they were not on the beautiful object of his desire, nestling in the velvet lined case, but a tatty half-sized version and his father lamenting his son’s total inability to make anything more than tortured noises from the bow and strings. This was interspersed with wonderful excerpts from hymns, from Hymns Ancient and Modern, a familiar tome to most over 40 year olds watching. Cocktail Sticks was very moving as Bennett examined in some detail his mother’s eccentricities, aspirations for a life of cocktail parties as portrayed in the magazines she read at the hairdresser – despite her lack of friends and dislike of alcohol – decaying slowly into depression and then the inexpressible waste of mental oblivion. The devotion of one parent to the other was beautifully done even to the details of ‘Dad’ played by Jeff Rawle, standing outside the Ladies holding his wife’s handbag, as ‘Mam’ played by Gabrielle Lloyd did not want to put it on the lavatory floor. The other powerful message from both plays was the great love and tenderness Bennett feels for his parents and was incredibly moving. Alex Jennings was wonderfully cast as Alan Bennett and seemed to capture his mixed emotions, with the guilt of exposing his emotions about those things closest to him. At the same time he mirrored the mannerisms, speech and deportment we recognise well as being the playwright himself. This was one of the best Bennet plays I have seen for some time.