Evening Telegraph 1963
Sparkling performance of riotous Priestley comedy by Rushden drama group
It took a mere scrap of paper to topple the pillars of respectability and rectitude in three Edwardian households, in J. B. Priestley’s “When We Are Married”, a riotous comedy presented by Rushden Amateur Dramatic Society last night. The play will be repeated tonight and tomorrow night.
Like they all agreed, it would have caused a fair rumpus from Clecklewyke to Leeds if the news had leaked out.
To think that those stalwarts of town and church, Ald. Joe Helliwell, the dreaded Councillor Parker (Albert to his friends) and old Herbert Soppitt had been “living in sin” for 2 years.
To think that instead of having their photograph in the “Yorkshire Argus” – they were celebrating their triple silver wedding anniversary- the neighbours would start “gassing” and they would all be a laughing stock.
ACCENTS
Of course, it was the proper thing to do, despite their celebration party, for Joe, Albert and Herbert – upright citizens with “where there’s muck there’s brass” accents – to summon the organist at Lane End Chapel and take him to task for gallivanting with girl friends in the small hours. After all, he was a “lawdy-daw” Southerner whose name was Gerald.
At a point in that interview, however, dignity was ruptured. The organist, while visiting Wales, had chanced to meet the reverend gentleman who had married the trio and he had confessed in a letter to a dreadful mistake – he thought he was qualified at the time, but he wasn’t.
Suspicions that their 25 years of unholy wedlock were wearing a little thin in any case are immediately confirmed, for while Joe and Albert (Herbert is unmistakeably henpecked) pride themselves in being straight-talkers, they are no match for their wives.
And the arrival of the Press, including a photographer-cum-devotee to Bacchus, who shunts his inebriated body between the local and the sofa, hardly improves matters.
The Clecklewyke tom-toms begin to beat thanks to Joe’s overworked and underpaid housekeeper, Mrs. Northrop, and to cap it all a brazen miss, Lottie Grady, arrives to take up Joe on the promises he once made to her in a bar at Blackpool.
All told, the cast give a sparkling performance with convincing lashings of Northern independence and fairly good mastery of the district’s butchered vowels.
Top marks must go to John Nevill as the self-esteemed manoeuvring “master of the situation” Ald. Helliwell, John Booth as the under-trodden and later assertive Mr. Soppitt, and particularly, Douglas Pope as the ebullient Councillor Parker.
Their wives, in order, played by Lily Hawes, Margery Witham and Edna Payne, are sufficiently correct and correcting to make their husbands feel that being “single” again is not such a bad thing after all and make a good opposing team, while Michael Brown as Henry Ormonroyd, the photographer, though he over-totters at times, has one of the best accents and makes an amusing man-in-the-middle.
Bob King, who plays Gerald Forbes, the organist and choirmaster, is not very audible and a trifle forced, but overall he does well, both as a beau for Nancy Holmes (Barbara Harrison) and the bearer of a message of doom.
Barbara has a small part, but she makes a firm contribution to a young society – this is only it’s fifth production – which does not seem to be lacking for talent. This could also be said of Judith Childs, the maid, Ruby, who while obedient, enjoys every minute of the domestic wrangle.
The perceptive housekeeper, and arch-mischief-maker, Mrs. Northrop, is played by Phyllis Clarke. What she lacks in a grasp of the local dialect she makes up for with abounding vitality, enthusiasm for her part, and most of the other facets of good acting ability.
Tony Hirons, who plays the reporter, is convincingly dedicated to the parish pump, while Virginia Sackett, as the vamp who made Joe want to vamoose, effectively detonates what remains of a happy home.
Another small part went to Bill Clarke, as the Rev. Mercer, a benign cornerstone of the local church, who is open to flattery and oozing with good.
The scenery, designed by Virginia Sackett and made by the younger members of the society, is first class, as are the lay-out and detail of the furnishings and effects, the lighting, the handling of the curtains and the general stage usage.
The play is produced by Rene Welsford at the town Secondary School for Boys.
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