REVIEW, A Different Way Home, Bath Theatre Royal: The anonymity and pointlessness of the average Englishman or woman's life is a frequent subject for dramatists of the "hanging on in quiet desperation" school of drama, to borrow Pink Floyd's memorable phrase.
Remember Alan Bennett's Talking Heads? There's a mix of heroism and bathos when one ordinary person responds by talking through an extreme situation. Jimmie Chinn's double monologue A Different Way Home takes a leaf from Bennett's book while failing to match his charm, skill or originality.
Written specifically as a showcase for the talents of Roy Barraclough, this play sets the repected TV veteran the challenge of playing both roles unfulfilled lonely bachelor Leslie who has just lost his mother, and his alienated sister, Maureen.
Martin John's effective set lays bare Leslie's poky little terrace house. The draughty sitting room, and the unspeakable kitchen cluttered with lumpy sugar, soft biscuits and even mother's fancy-man's gas mask left over from the war, are claustrophobic enough and deeply depressing. Leslie's 60-odd years have been stifled by habit, by crippling emotional baggage and that peculiarly English embarrassment about emotions.
Despite the sentimentality of the piece, Roy Barraclough's performance as both Leslie and Maureen is superb. He has no difficulty in filling the stage of the Bath Theatre Royal with his desperate, poignant monologues. No, the trouble lies not with the performance, but the predictable nature of the writing. Jimmie Chan's moribund tale is unredeemed by anything that surprises or delights us. It remains pretty devoid of wit or surrealism or philosophy. This show may be billed as a "poignant comedy", but I challenge anyone to find much to laugh about.
Sue Le Blond
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