Chorus of Disapproval, which just finished its run at The New Wolsey Theatre, is written by the great, prolific English playwright Alan Ayckbourn, whose wry observations of people are both cringe-worthy and laugh-out-loud hilarious. The New Wolsey, which continues to produce first class edgy and entertaining theatre for the region, collaborated with the Mercury Theatre of Colchester to put on the production, and together they have come up with a cracking play. Hopefully this successful partnership will be the first of many and will encourage other independent arts institutes to work together.

Born in 1939 Alan Ayckbourn got his first acting job in 1956 at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre. In 1957 he was employed as Acting Stage manager of the Library Theatre in Scarborough, which later became the Stephen Joseph Theatre, where all but four of his plays have received their premier, before heading onto the West End. In 1975 he had five plays running simultaneously in West End Theatres! An avid experimenter Ayckbourn often used to produce twin plays and decide which was to be performed on the night by the toss of a coin! He also wrote a complex series of eight plays called Intimate exchanges, which had eighteen possible endings – eat your heart out DVD! In 1997 he was knighted for his services to theatre, crowning an incredible career of fifty years.

In 1984 came the Chorus of Disapproval, the play under scrutiny here, which is a sassy modern take on the Shakespearian play within a play structure. Set in the Yorkshire of the 1980s it takes place between the first rehearsal and first performance by an Operatic Society of John Gay’s eighteenth century farce The Beggar’s Opera. Set in suburbia it has all the wonderful rivalries, tantrums, sexual tension and rampant egos you would expect from amateur dramatics.

The excellent Julian Harries (writer/producer/ actor of the Eastern Angle’s excellent Christmas productions, interviewed in December’s issue) plays Guy Jones, a young widower, who joins the group for friendship and consolation and ends up with far more than he bargained for as he is seduced by Fay Hubbard (Shona Lindsay) and Hannah (Katy Secombe), the long suffering wife of Dafydd ap Llewellyn the mercurial but oblivious Welsh director of the company. Whilst the two affairs he is involved in seem to be transforming the initially timid Guy into a Lothario, Fay and others are attempting to lure him into a shady business deal, which will result in the seizure of the company’s land. As more actors leave the company, Guy is promoted into meatier roles as bribes until he finally attains the lead part, Macheath, a character who he is increasingly coming to resemble in a deliciously satirical case of life imitating art.

Dafydd (hilariously played by RSC actor Siôn Tudor Owen) the ex-professional director and scholar finds that amateur dramatics allow him to vent all his emotional Welsh temperament and the line ‘I wish to god they were professionals so that I could sack them’, sums up all of his frustrations. The other characters compliment each other well, from the big mouthed Bridget, daughter of the pub landlord, to Rebecca’s husband, whose idea of heaven was listening to steam engines on his head phones during rehearsals.

The play bubbles with little in-jokes and theatrical mannerisms gathered by Ayckbourn over the years, and is rife with gently satirical jabs at the world of theatre in which he lived his life. This was a great production from the creative team at the Wolsey, lead by regular director Peter Rowe, whose jaw droppingly brilliant adaptations of Double Indemnity, Sweeney Todd and Little Shop of Horrors have graced the theatre’s stage in recent years.

The play is currently running at Colchester’s Mercury theatre until March 21 and will then go to the Watford Palace in London between March 24 and April 4.

Words > Julie Davies