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A normal day in life of Norman?
REVIEW: THE NORMAN CONQUESTS
Old Vic Theatre
TABLE Manners, Living Together and Round and Round the Garden are three separate plays about the same six characters: Norman, his in-laws and the local vet.
They cover almost identical timescales over a summer weekend; each set in a different location at a house in the English countryside to give interwoven elements of the same story.
A character who leaves a room in one play is seen, what would be a moment later, entering a different location in another. Each play stands alone but you discover much more about these multi-layered relationships from seeing all three.
Annie, still living at home looking after her cantankerous invalid mother, is illicitly going away for the weekend with her brother-in-law Norman – to East
Ginstead, of all places.
Her brother Reg and his wife Sarah visit to care for mother while she is away. Norman comes to the house instead of meeting Annie in the village. Sarah discovers what is happening. She wants to get Annie paired off with vet Tom, a match that has been imminent for years. Norman gets drunk on lethal home-brewed wine and Sarah gets his wife to come down from London.
The complications multiply as Alan Ayckbourn’s scripts exploit marital and sibling bickering, rivalry and resentment that audiences may find all too familiar and that Matthew Warchus’s hilarious production brings to life.
Norman (‘I’m just magnetic’) sees his mission as making every woman happy and actor Stephen Mangan makes him a guiless romantic clown, prancing around like a chimp or initiating a raunchy romp on a rug with Amelia Bullimore’s marvellously myopic Ruth.
No-one is safe from Norman’s advances, not even, it seems at one point, brother-in-law Reg, who Paul Ritter plays in safari jacket and slight flares with a twinkle-toed little dance when amused.
Reg is apparently impervious to his wife’s unceasing criticisms – another lovely performance from Amanda Root, who shows her underlying frustrations as well as her bossiness.
Vet Tom, much happier with animals than people, may seem unworldly and
uncomprehending, but in one turn to avoid a
confrontation Ben Miles encapsulates his character. Could he, one can’t help asking, make
Jessica Hynes’ Annie happy?
Well, perhaps: the answer may depend upon which play(s) you see. But one play won’t give you the whole story.
In rep until December 20
CNJ Booking line
0870 040 0070
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