A Small Mind At The Theatre

I never got to see Deckchairs as it was performed at the Playhouse in 2014 two shows before I discovered the place. Therefore I was coming to this follow-up cold. However this is not a sequel in any case, just another play of four totally unconnected plays, they are two handers set on a seafront or beach of some kind. None of them are thankfully performed on those impossible to put up traditional deckchairs. The style of the four plays varies, with two serious pieces of drama in the centre, book ended by two outright comedies. It forms an interesting, and not totally successful package. Written by Jean McConnell, these are quintessentially British feeling plays with often broad brushstroke and caricatured characters. The quality of the stories varies with by far the stronger ones after the interval and this is surprisingly replicated to a certain extent by the performances themselves. The opening play is titled Day Trippers and is a relatively lightweight tale of a trip of two cowo...

In my relatively brief theatre life I like often to try to spot tidbits of information with any new plays that I am seeing. Most are generally dull, maybe a writer I have or haven't seen before or an actor reappearing. Bazaar And Rummage though provides one of the more vaguely interesting ones in that it was first performed in 1982 in the compact 90 seater Royal Court Upstairs, which just so happens to be the same place I saw my very first London play, Rainbow Kiss in 2006. Well that is interesting to me anyway... The writer of Bazaar And Rummage, Sue Townsend, is someone I very much grew up reading via her classic Adrian Mole diaries. However despite loving them so much, rather oddly I have never seen or read anything else from her career as a writer. Bazaar And Rummage (Townsend's fifth play) is about a group ("You can't call them a group. They've never met!) of agoraphobics who attempt to recover through holding as the title suggests a bazaar and rummage sale....