| Master Class in Comic Writing |
Steptoe and Son |
| Bold Productions & Aberystwyth Arts Centre , Aberystwyth Arts Centre , October 6, 2013 |
Attitudes towards television are the same as those that greeted the arrival of printing, watercolour, film, jazz, and music recorded on a wax cylinder. It is true that theatre is little elevated by “’Allo ‘Allo” but the Brontes and George Eliot are considered dignified fare for theatre. That their great novels are structurally unfit for the stage matters not. They get produced for one reason, that they bring in a lot of GCSE pupils to bulk out the audience. And en route they also ensure that a generation of young people will never buy themselves a theatre ticket freely for the rest of their lives. Bold has been present at a packed event to commemorate a career given to the making of Aberystwyth’s Theatr y Werin. Their presence persuaded me to their 2013 production. My attitude towards television-on-stage has been as condescending as anyone’s- and I was wrong. Anyone with an interest in how to write for the stage, which excludes a cluster of recipients of public funding, would benefit from a trip to Swansea’s Arts Wing this weekend. Three aspects at least recommend themselves to any writer. The first is climax. Conclusion is not climax. The production comprises two one act plays and both close with a flourish that is not just inventive, and a surprise for the audience, but integrated wholly with what has preceded. The first is pure theatre, a slowly executed action without words. The second loops with great cleverness back to the play’s opening. The second aspect is that the writing is rooted in character, and character tension. Harold’s aspirations to gentility are akin to the Hancock-James duo of the same period. Father beats him hollow at scrabble and Harold is left protesting at “the catalogue of crudities” laid out on the board. He informs Ryan Woodruff’s visiting vicar that his religious beliefs are much influenced by Bertrand Russell. Meanwhile he is stuck with a companion who taunts him at not being able to spell the name of a horse called Chrysanthemum. Bold’s previous work has included Beckett and Pinter. The programme notes say that Galton and Simpson are not so far away: “the underlying recurrent themes of our earlier productions are just as evident here.” Comparisons with Beckett might appear far-fetched. But there is the same sense of lives locked within an enclosed world. Harold, hauled out of school at age twelve on to the family horse and cart, yearns for an escape, whether it be through romance or a career in journalism. That escape will of course never be realised. The emotions are real and they are ones that matter. Son thrusts an open cut-throat razor at father with an urging to do himself in. Father wallows in an affected pathos. The parent-child relationship is turned on its head when Albert is grabbed for a forcible washing of his neck. Lastly, the apprentice writer should note the use of references. The evening cleverly comprises two playlets written ten years apart. In 1962 the Second World War is within the experience of the son, born 1925, and the Great War the experience of the father. A special meal is finished off with a tin of fruit and evaporated milk. The words in the script that come with capital letters are ones that count, not shopping items and chain store brand names but the Depression and the General Strike. “Steptoe and Son” comes with powerful pre-images for an audience of a certain age. For the first thirty seconds or so it can be felt in the auditorium, that the piece is a simulacrum of performance from another medium. But as one of the company says “We’re not mimics, we’re actors. It’s not Rory Bremner.” The two main actors establish themselves, as themselves, rapidly in the roles. David Blumfield, his jaw thrust out and his lips curled downwards, is a Uriah Heep of calculation and manipulation. Stephen Wright does less of the falsetto whine and more of the anger of desperation. Richard Hull’s direction gets the ricochet and concentration of the relationship pitch perfect. The design has a stage covered with packing cases; on one of them a skeleton sits doffing his hat in the direction of the audience. Nice. “Steptoe and Son” plays Swansea’s Arts Wing Saturday 12th October. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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