Living Together: Matilda Ridgway, Brian Meegan and Rachel Gordon. Photo:Prudence Upton.
Poor Annie! The only one of the six characters in the Norman Conquests for whom I can feel any lasting sympathy. I left Round and Round the Garden, hoping she would not have to make do with that man! But to go back to the beginning, or one of three beginnings actually because the Norman Conquests is a trilogy, which can be seen in any order or as stand-alone plays. Seeing all of them adds extra layers of fun and comprehension – what happens off-stage in one play will be centre stage in another – and also heightens one’s appreciation of Ayckbourn’s cleverness in fitting all the pieces together.
Each one is a brilliant snapshot of human life, and like all good comedy masks the pain with acute observation and laughter. Acykbourn is a master at this.
The events of the Norman Conquests take place over one disastrous weekend in leafy Sussex, in the south of England, where the living rooms are ordered, where the lawns are neatly mowed and where life can be exceedingly banal. Annie is one of three siblings, and the one who has drawn the short straw. She is left at home to look after mother, a querulous (and unseen) invalid. Her brother Reg (Brian Meegan) and his acerbic wife Sarah (Danielle Carter) have reluctantly agreed to babysit mother and allow Annie a weekend’s reprieve. They assume she is going off for a dirty weekend with Tom (Sam O’Sullivan), her irritatingly bland and uninspiring quasi-love interest. But she’s not, she has planned a clandestine rendezvous with her sister Ruth’s husband, Norman (Yalin Ozucelik), who sees himself as a sort of suburban Don Juan, tilting at any woman within sight because he alone can make them happy.
Living Together: Matilda Ridgway as Annie and Yalin Ozucelik as Norman. Photo: Prudence Upton
As previously noted (see separate review for Table Manners), the cast, under the fine direction of Mark Kilmurry, is superb. In Living Together and Round and Round the Garden, Matilda Ridgway’s Annie is still as wonderfully nuanced but we see more of her desperate resilience; Meegan’s Reg becomes even more beige but is curiously happy with his meagre lot in life; Carter’s Sarah is still as strident but more unhappy; Sullivan’s hapless Tom is more hapless and possibly even more dim; and Rachel Gordon’s workaholic Ruth is given more complexity, especially in the Garden scenes. Ozucelik’s Norman, an unprepossessing narcissist of the highest order (and with appallingly comic dress sense), just gets worse and worse!
In the living room, Reg tries unsuccessfully to find takers to play a board game he has created; in the garden, Norman winds up Tom by giving him false advice on how to woo Annie; back in the living room Ruth forgives Norman, and Sarah gets even more upset. Of course, Annie doesn’t get her weekend away; she is reduced to breaking the china and wondering at her existence.
It’s all terribly English, while at the same time being universal. Small jealousies, large rows, searing loneliness and lost opportunities; all the banality of the humdrum, and all so funny that it hurts.
Ayckbourn loves theatrical tricks – his earlier play How the Other Half Loves has one set for two living rooms and two dinner parties played out simultaneously – but even without them his wit and satire bite through. Although written in 1973, the Norman Conquests is still relevant and still too good to miss.
Living Together and Round and Round the Garden in rep as part of The Norman Conquests trilogy by Alan Ayckbourn, is at the Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli until 12 January, 2019.
