Review: Woman in Mind – The People’s Theatre, Newcastle
Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman in Mind is a consistently funny play dealing with the anxieties and missed opportunities middle-age brings.
Woman in Mind, which runs until Saturday at The People’s Theatre on Newcastle’s Coast Road, begins shortly after middle-aged housewife Susan has had an unfortunate encounter with a garden rake, and hallucinates on the perceived ‘perfect’ family she never had and the perfect books she never wrote.
The set design illustrates the contrast between reality and fantasy in no uncertain terms, and is somewhat reminiscent of Frank Oz’s 1987 version of Little Shop of Horrors, in which Audrey dreams of “somewhere that’s green” in vivid Technicolor before returning to skid row.
Luckily, Susan’s home isn’t the world of psychopathic dentists, even if the dark, mundane reality of a husband with a passion for local history juxtaposes with the life she wishes she had, in which she receives glowing reviews of her work from the broadsheets.
And, to add a spoonful of complexity, it transpires that the artificial world to which Susan aspires might not be as great as assumed.
Despite centering upon Susan’s anxiety about her unfulfilled aspirations, Woman in Mind is actually not as bleak as I expected, with many a moment of classic English farce, from the archetypal vicar to a dodgy cup of tea.
Sister-in-law Muriel, played here by Anne Cater, is the catalyst for most of the giggles, with her culinary incapability.
Michael Short’s performance as Bill is also measured, with a splendid sequence in which he entertains Susan’s delusion.
It’s great to see Short here, actually; a veteran member of the People’s Theatre Group, he appeared as Shylock during my first ever visit to this theatre in 1996.
But, of course, it is Penny Lamport as Susan who delivers the heart of the play, dealing with return to her humdrum existence from her fantasies of an idyllic garden and tennis-playing children, with musical scholarships and the like, dressed in pristine white.
Great performances all round, and measured direction contains some pleasing subtleties such as the naturalistic disfluency found in everyday speech.
If you haven’t yet paid the People’s Theatre a visit, then you really must give it a try. The ticket prices are good value for great performances, and much of the current season – certainly the productions we cover here at Giggle Beats – delivers the laughs you’d expect from a standard comedy night.
Woman in Mind runs until Saturday 10 May at The People’s Theatre in Heaton, Newcastle. Tickets are available from the Box Office on 0191 265 5020 and online.
