Pitlochry Festival Theatre, in repertory, 2006

Summer Lightning.

ON A GLORIOUS summer’s evening in picturesque Pitlochry, PG Wodehouse’s airy comedy is like a glass of Pimms. It’s bright, refreshing and frivolous – and you wouldn’t want too much of it – but it suits the occasion just fine.

Adapted by Giles Havergal, the former artistic director of the Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, it sits somewhere between novel and play, the actors alternating between description and dialogue as they skip their way through Wodehouse’s tale of young love set against the idyllic backdrop of Blandings Castle at the close of the Roaring Twenties.

One moment the characters are addressing us directly, the next they’re engaged in heated discussion. It means we hear the author’s voice even as the drama takes on a life of its own.

Director Richard Baron perfected this style of tongue-in-cheek theatricality several years ago in productions such as ‘The 39 Steps’ and ‘Travels with my Aunt’. You could argue that he’s mastered it rather too well and glides through the show without stretching himself, but he understands what’s needed and keeps the audience amused throughout.

Designer Ken Harrison adds to the self-conscious atmosphere with a set of cut-out trees and flowers that look more like a decorative wallpaper design than the real thing. Whenever possible, his props are two dimensional, lending an appropriate cartoon atmosphere to proceedings.

For a journey from London to Shropshire he does nothing more than place two actors behind a flat representation of a car – or even just a cardboard steering wheel. That gets a laugh just for the playful audacity of it, as do his shadow puppet diners in the restaurant scene.

The story, vaguely reminiscent of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, is about two sets of lovers – Hugo and Millicent (Darrell Brockis and Flora Berkeley) and Ronnie and Sue (Anthony Glennon and Amy Ewbank) – whose romantic plans are repeatedly thwarted by jealousy, foolishness or the disapproval of the older generation. It all comes right in the end, of course, in a feelgood romp of no great consequence and no greater aim than simple enjoyment.

Personally, I could take it or leave it (and perhaps that is Wodehouse’s frivolous intention), but there’s no question the actors do an entertaining job, notably Brockis as a naïve young man whose very innocence is the thing that gets him into trouble.

© Mark Fisher, 2006

Link

• Pitlochry Festival Theatre