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GETTING ON by Alan Bennett
Venue: Watford Palace 1990
Director: Roger Smith


Cast

George Clive Francis
Geoff Jared Harris
Polly Serena Evans
Brian Gregory Floy
Enid Eleanor Summerfield
Mrs Brodribb Ruth Kettlewell
Andy Simon Cox
Voices of
James
Elizabeth
Daisy Smith

Review

George is 40, fat, cross and tired, with (in his own words) a sagging system and a mouth of teeth that look like the ruins of Hamburg. He is a Labour MP who is becoming more right-wing every day, with a big Edwardian house in Highgate, a country cottage and a lifestyle wrapped in stripped pine and collectible clutter. This threatens to choke him almost as much as the fumes and frustrations of the motorways. In other words George is having a mega mid-life crisis.  He is in the tenth year of his second marriage to much younger Polly “of the crab apple jelly brigade”, who doesn’t mind him getting fatter if only he would get jollier with it.

Alan Bennett’s bittersweet comedy is relentless in the increasing isolation of George, as both his wife and his best friend, Conservative MP Brian, find an oasis in a turbulent life with Geoff, the young part-time “Nazarene carpenter, handyman" who mopes around the house hippy-fashion with a doleful, soulful, sulky look on his face. The play is set in 1971 but George’s crisis and its effect on his surroundings are timeless.  He is a man who is too scared to 1ook (he doesn't want to see what is happening right under his nose in his own home), doesn’t listen and has stopped changing.

Playing George, Clive Francis exudes all the exhaustive energy of a man in restless pursuit of purpose, confused that the goals (becoming Minister) now so close have lost their attraction. He talks and talks.  "You bring everything down to words," accuses Polly in a rare outburst. Serena Evans beautifully busies herself about the house, family and friends, acting as a cushion for and against George with a growing glow as she finds a little spice to domestic life on the side. Eleanor Summerfield is doing her own charming age-battle as Enid the liberated mother-in-law, who understands George and embarrasses her daughter. Gregory Floy contrasts well as the laid-back Conservative MP, mocking George for being a Socialist who doesn't like people. "As a Conservative, I don't have to," quips Brian, who admits to being in awe of middle-class, middle-aged Tory ladies. “Give me a tenth of the energy one of them puts into flower arranging" he muses, deeply reclined in the settee.

Like the character George, Bennett’s play is more verbal than visual, the action confined to conversation and verbal exchanges with good one-liners to ease concentration. Roger Smith directs a fluid performance that might have gained by a few surprise movements without danger of becoming farcical. Douglas Heap’s design is a delight in stripped-pine living adorned with all the clutter of a home-made "designer" happy family home.