HUMBLE BOY *****
THOUGH originally inspired by the Hamlet story, there are discernible traces here of both Michael Frayn and Anton Chekhov. It is a complicated web of allusions, metaphors and science dressed up as a traditional drawing room play – learned, funny, but full of humanity and with surprising moments of the broadest of black comedy.
Playwright Charlotte Jones is much concerned with grief and the different ways in which it is handled.
The overture of Flight of the Bumble Bee immediately creates a feeling of unease in Mike Lees' exquisite garden setting.
It is the aftermath of the funeral of James
Humble – biologist and beekeeper.
Felix, his son arrives, dressed in cricketing whites, stammering neurotically about the lack of bees and obsessively fingering his beard. Felix, convincingly played by Ben Farrow, is a Cambridge research fellow in physics and terminally eccentric, unable to communicate. He is constantly beset by his problem with the unified field theory, hoping that eventually he will arrive at his ‘Eureka’ moment.
His mother, Flora, is a self-absorbed woman devoted to apportioning blame and spreading guilt. She arrives from the funeral in a cerise suit complaining that he has escaped from the church before giving the funeral oration and comments on his dress. "You're not wearing black" he says. "But this is Jean Muir" she replies.
Gay Soper's crisp delivery is perfect for the role which is a barrage of one-liners. "I am doubly unlucky. I married a biologist and gave birth to a physicist.."
Although the play is primarily about the relationship between mother and son, the other characters are just as intriguing and it is easy to fall in love with each of them.
Anny Tobin's performance as Mercy, Flora's friend, is a comedy delight. She is incredibly funny in her polite but totally confused reaction to Felix's lecture on astrophysics.
Equally bewildered is Harry Meacher's George Pye – rough diamond and Flora's long-time lover. Beautiful Susie Harriet is Rose, deserted by Felix, an Ophelia completely in control of her faculties. Director Alexander Holt has assembled an unusually brilliant cast for this fascinating play.
ALiNE WAITES