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EVERYONE’S favourite GCSE English homework project was played to an enthusiastic audience at the British Club and performed with aplomb by a cast including several new
faces to Bahrain’s theatrical scene.
I normally review performances by the Manama Theatre Club at the British Club either at dress rehearsal stage or opening night but for reasons beyond my control took in the
Thursday night show of An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley.
Three nights in and the performance was assured and confdent, the stage and lighting perfect and for the frst time ever in my experience, the sound superb, every word delivered by the actors clear and crisp, so a big ‘congratulations’ to the back stage crew, well done!
This is one of my favourite packages of mischief and soul searching by this particular playwright. Directed by Rory Adamson and produced by Marina Tadayon, it’s a sort of whodunit with a twist, telling the tale of a miserable woman (or all women, one could argue) totally screwed by one family, unbeknown to its members until the dark and uncompromising spooky detective calls to investigate her death.
The story centres around a family gathering at the home of Arthur Birling, a wealthy mill owner and local politician played by Mike Franklin whose character, if I was to be really picky, could have been played with a bit more northern grit, because his daughter, Sheila, played soundly by Siubhan Neilsen, is, after a long and somewhat shaky romance, about to wed his competitor’s upper class son, whose eyes had strayed over the summer with ‘you know who’.
I also might have cast a younger actor than the esteemed Tony Wilson in the cad’s role because I always imagined this character to be from the generation between the younger family members and their parents, rather than the fnished mature article.
Anne Koheji was superb as Sybil Birling, the family’s matriarch, and she really captured the role of a woman who obviously relished the thought of her daughter marrying into
the class she felt she belonged in.
The Birling son Eric was convincingly played by Jacob Rusling with just enough dim witting wastefulness of character. But the star performance came from newcomer Martyn Wharrie, right, who arrived recently on the island to teach English and Literature at the British School of Bahrain and who once was turned away from the British Club for arriving at an after-dinner jacket-only speaking engagement in a Hull City football jersey.
If the receptionist had any idea what a great addition he would become to the club’s drama section I’m sure she would have rolled out the red carpet instead.
Wharrie played the inspector with a sinister edge and convincingly bullied the truth out of the characters and made them refect on the misery they had caused to the young
women who killed herself.
During the play’s interval, the conversation at the bar fowed as to who was responsible for making the victim take her own life as the audience members queued for refreshments. This is always a good sign that people are paying attention, although my good lady wife Kathryn was the only one convinced that Edna the maid (a cameo performance featuring half a dozen lines by Julia Doorne) was guilty because she was in love with the family’s drunken son and jealousy had made her give the woman advice on how to end it all). She’s defnitely been reading too many of my detective novels at night.
The tale was set before the launch of the Titanic when business was booming, when every businessman was optimistic that the good times would continue to roll on, before that sinking feeling of inevitable downturn began to bite. It could have been time prior to the 1st World War, the 2nd World War or the Iraq invasion for that matter.
The cast collectively fell into character and fnally regrouped in generational order, with the younger members offering hope to the world by accepting their dastardly deeds and looking determined not to repeat them, whereas the others remained more determined to continue on the path of looking after number one after getting away with a scare.
However, a shadow of doubt remains and the family calls the hospital to check whether a suicidal woman has indeed been checked in for treatment. A bad move perhaps, how
could they possibly know?
An inspector will no doubt call to investigate. Now readers, your homework tonight is 1,000 words on whether it will be the same one, or a more subservient offcer as tradition may dictate. Will we ever learn from our mistakes or will we continue to repeat them. Will society change and become more caring?
A thinking man’s play performed well.
