A STATE OF AFFAIRS by Graham Swannell
Venue: Duchess 1985
Directed by Peter James

Cast
Gary Bond
Nichola McAuliffe
Amanda Boxer
Arthur Kelly
Lee Walker

Review

There is a certain satisfaction in seeing a play, more strictly, four short plays, which deals with human relationships on a strictly personal level, that is without blaming the breakdown on anything except the people themselves. Graham Swannell, author of A State of Affairs, makes an encouraging start in the theatre by tackling the age-old theme of marriage and its consequent, seemingly inevitable, snare, infidelity, or at least the possibility of it. His four sketches present an assortment of situations, the couple who have grown tired of sex with each other, the woman who lets a casual affair go deeper than she intended, the man whose fleeting infidelity leaves him racked with guilt and the couple who find that a child is placing an intolerable strain on their marriage. Though Swannell, possibly deliberately, leaves each situation dangling in mid-air, he puts across his points, biased slightly in favour of the man, with insight and a fair amount of wit, being particularly adept at establishing the scene and the social status of the characters.

The most amusing is The Day of the Dog, in which Allen, disconsolate on a pub terrace after his fall from grace, fails to become a cheered up by two mates. The most profound and moving is Consequences, the result of truth coming out and the sudden switch in feelings this can cause. Gary Bond and Nicola McAuliffe play the principal protagonists in three of the playlets, Bond, with the eager assistance of Arthur Kelly, and Lee Walker, carrying The Day of the Dog largely by himself.  Amanda Boxer plays two women from whom men should run a mile but all too seldom do.  Peter James directs, in four effective settings by Tim Bickerton.