Alan Bennett: Talking Heads

Bennett’s TV plays make the transition from TV dramas somewhat awkwardly. There is a lack of intimacy in the format that is not helped by the expansive nature of Francis O’Connor’s shaky set, and in directing, Sarah Esdale may have been far too concerned with accents than needed, which left Siobhan Redmond with a wobbly Harrogate twang via Brum and Karl Theobald, who fared better, on occasions lapsing into something far more home counties. That said both managed to convey the bitter sweet tragedy of these wonderful scripts.
Siobhan Redmond finally finds her footing in the scene when her character finds a kind of peace in prison, and here she gives as good a rendering of the sadness of loneliness as one might hope to see.
Karl Theobald is moving as Graham, the sad son who suffers from being… well what does he suffer from and how best do we describe this when former labels have all been denied us by the advent of political correctness? Graham has problems, lives at home with his widowed mother and does not work, Graham would perhaps now be described as having “other” rather than “special” needs but Graham is not stupid, just vulnerable and Theobald delivers this with skill.
Bennett captures in words the now quaint language and manners of a Northern England that is perhaps disappearing if not already gone and one has to wonder how time will affect the work, will future audiences even understand the subtle nuances of that past age. Being Northern of course, and of a certain age, they ring home with distressing clarity – and never more so than when the marvelous Stephanie Cole delivers “A Cream Cracker Under The Settee”, what’s a settee you may ask and that merely clarifies my previous point. Cole nails the accent, nails the nuances, delivers the humour with dour charm and the tragedy with stoic resignation. She plays Bennett with a realism that allows it to get right to the heart, one minute with joy, the next with heart wrenching sadness. Hers is a five star performance, moving but sadly too short.
11 August
Theatre Royal Brighton
Andrew Kay
4 stars