How The Other Half Loves
Written by Alan Ayckbourn
Directed by Karen Carleton
Performed in Mill Theatre 24 to 28 March 2009
Springtime Comedy at the Mill Theatre
An open and shut case of laughter unlimited
On Saturday 28 March 2009, the echoes of laughter generated by the well known and well loved comedy 'How the Other Half Loves' by Alan Ayckbourn finally faded from the main stage in the Mill Theatre.
Directed by Karen Carleton, the play is a direct descendant of the drawing room comedy of Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward.
It adds a more contemporary outlook, including references to and a certain dependence upon the precepts of the ‘permissive society’, but it is essentially a tale of well-to-do people getting lost in the mix between social graces and personal misunderstandings.
'How the Other Half Loves' is a clever, witty and well crafted play that plays with time and space to present the lives and loves, passion and panic of three married couples in a play of love and laughter, meals and mayhem. Like all of Ayckbourn's comedies it is about the precise interaction of sex and class in modern English society. Bob Phillip's liaison with his boss's wife is in danger of being discovered by their respective partners. Each attempt to wriggle out of suspicion by projecting their own infidelity on to a third, totally innocent, uninteresting and unsuspecting couple in the Featherstones.
The action takes place at two dinner parties given on different nights. The single set is almost a character in itself, so important is it to the action. It represents two living-dining rooms at once. The furniture and often the people of the two places are intermingled, most notably in the scene that closes the first act, when one hapless couple is having Thursday night dinner with another pair and Friday night dinner with the third. The ensuing action leads to a string of misunderstandings and events with hilarious consequences in one of Alan Ayckbourn's best loved comedies.
In common with Wilde and Coward, it also trades on the quintessentially English sense of faint superiority and the proprietary repression of natural emotional reactions to extreme situations. It is also very funny; but like all first-rate comedies, the play is only funny because it tackles serious issues.
The cast of 'How The Other Half Loves' (l to r) Claire Reilly, Sean Murphy, Claire O'Donovan, Kevin Fahey, Orla Hegan and Brian Molloy (seated).
'How the Other Half Loves' is a clever, witty and well crafted play that plays with time and space to present the lives and loves, passion and panic of three married couples in a play of love and laughter, meals and mayhem.
The furniture and often the people of the two places are intermingled, most notably in the scene that closes the first act, when one hapless couple is having Thursday night dinner with another pair and Friday night dinner with the third. The ensuing action leads to a string of misunderstandings and events with hilarious consequences in one of Alan Ayckbourn's best loved comedies.
Like all of Ayckbourn's comedies it is about the precise interaction of sex and class in modern English society.
Bob Phillip's liaison with his boss's wife is in danger of being discovered by their respective partners.
Each attempt to wriggle out of suspicion by projecting their own infidelity on to a third, totally innocent, uninteresting and unsuspecting couple in the Featherstones. The action revolves around two dinner parties given on different nights.
The single set is almost a character in itself, so important is it to the action. It represents two living-dining rooms at once.
| Frank Foster Fiona Foster Bob Philips Teresa Philips William Featherstone Mary Featherstone |
Brian Molloy Claire O'Donovan Kevin Fahey Orla Hegan Sean Murphy Claire Reilly |
|
Director Set Design Costume Design Sound Design Lighting Design Production Manager Stage Manager Assistant Stage Managers Stage Management Team Set Construction Publicity Make-Up Continuity |
Karen Carleton Louis O'Byrne Dympna Murray Declan Brennan Paul Macken Niamh Daly Bernard Doyle Joanne Keane, Jean Monahan Helen Martin, Lorraine Hedderman, Aisling McArdle, Sarah Cunningham, Stacy Hamilton, Teresa Murphy Brendan Dunne, Brian Dempsey, John Carleton, Louis O'Byrne, Bernard Doyle, Fergal Cleary, Tony McGettigan Joanne Keane, Deirdre Davenport, Muriel Caslin-O'Hagan Teresa Dempsey, Doris Cullen Ciaran Dwyer, Richard Kirby |
A show like 'How The Other Half Loves' would never get off the ground, let alone fly successfully before an audience, without the skill and dedication of the team of people working behind the scenes.
Out of the glare of the stage lights, before and after the audience are in their seats, the team behind the action works to make everything seem effortless and easy.
Our esteemed Production Manager not only kept everyone in line, he also got down on his hands and knees to make sure everything was just right - as seen here before the show, under the watchful eye of the cheeky vacuum!
Backstage, some camera-shy members of the busy crew prepared the meals for the show and ensured that the boiled egg and toast soldiers were "not too soft and not too hard"!
Picture Gallery
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