April 17th, 2009
While passing the evening before Kate and Jan’s wedding day, we found ourselves re-visiting Cambridge Arts Theatre. When we lived in Cambridge we became regulars at this small theatre and it was quite nice to go back again. This evenings play was A Song At Twilight by Noel Coward.
“This is classic Coward at its best! Featuring razor-sharp wit and sumptuous settings combined with compelling and poignant story-telling, A Song at Twilight was one of his final pieces of stage work and is arguably one of his finest. Settled in a luxurious hotel in Switzerland, Sir Hugo Latymer and his wife invite actress Carlotta Gray to dine, with unexpected consequences. Sir Hugo is haughty, self-righteous, witty and sharp, but he has met his match. Carlotta is not quite the silly actress Sir Hugo cruelly portrayed her to be in his memoirs. In fact she has information in her possession that would completely ruin him. The stage is set for a classic Coward glittering battle of egos.”
Our fellow audience members were mainly middle to old aged although there was a sprinkling of youngsters here and there. We actually liked this play and being written by Noel Coward it was clever, intelligent and funny. Belinda Lang was excellent, but we found Peter Egan loud and wooden. At times, you just wanted to turn him off and listen to the other main characters.
This being a night with the Pryordurkins in town, something had to go wrong though. During the first half of the play an elderly women took ill and while the play continued, this little old dear was attended to by paramedics in the dark. I was torn between watching the actors trying to continue the play without batting an eye lid and looking to my left wondering whether someone had just passed away. The old addage the show must go on, now means something because they certainly didn’t let a little inconvenience like someone taking very ill, stop the play. The good news is, the lady hadn’t died in the auditorium while we were there!
Anyway, it was a nice evening and as is usual for plays we currently see, the audience (except us who were laughing) mostly left depressed or in tears.
Pryordurkin rating 3 stars.
Posted in Arts and Entertainment