THE DRESSER AT THE ARTS THEATRE

It is 1942 and English cities are under constant bombardment in the Blitz. One struggling theatre company in an unnamed provincial town is determined to ‘keep buggering on’ as Churchill put it and stage their production of King Lear regardless of risk. Times are tough- so many young actors are away at the War. Their roles are replaced by a stalwart band of seasoned troupers. ‘My grandson has been taken prisoner at Tripoli!’, cries Geoffrey Thornton the antique stage assistant (played by Pip Donaghy) cast as the Fool - to his delighted surprise. 

 As the play begins, the principal, actor manager ‘Sir’ goes mad. We hear from his dresser Norman how that very day, he has been roaring around ‘Market Square’ shedding his clothes and jumping on his hat. Norman, a role Julian Clary handles with superb nuance – and comic success, charts his manic progress for the audience.   A completely convincing Emma Amos as ‘Her Ladyship’, Sir’s younger wife she also plays Cordelia – is almost at the end of her tether. Sir, a bellicose grandee of the theatre is meant to be on stage that evening for his starring role. Suddenly Sir appear in a state of voluble confusion; he announces he has discharged himself from hospital.

Mathew Kelly is magnificent as Sir - he declaims his own greatness and jumbles his Shakespearean roles into one heroic mélange of dramatic self- indulgence.  His booming voice commands compliance. As the audience begins to arrive the long serving, put- upon stage manager Madge, played with repressed tension by a brilliantly brittle Rebecca Charles , tries to cancel but Norman, in charge of Sir at all times, repels her at the dressing room door. Sir will be fine, he explains, once he’s in his makeup  ‘just deepen those lines round the nose’ and inside his elaborate wig and crown.  Other actors refuse to help. Samuel Holmes as Mr. Oxenby is fabulous as the young socialist idealist who stalks the scene, fuming with frustration. His character was sad plausibly to be based on Harold Pinter who for five years toured with a repertory company where the author was – yes - the Dresser to the Great Actor Manager – Donald Wolfit.  (inevitable Disclaimer is available!)

 The wait is agony for the audience. The entire scenario hints at farce. How will it all play out? Will Norman, with his battery of great comedic lines, succeed as he coaxes Sir back to reality? Will Sir get that makeup on in time between the sobbing and shouting? Who will operate the Storm Machine? Will King Lear collapse into incoherence?

 It is all very funny - what is more entertaining than a ‘play within a play? But there is much more to this work than  a surface ‘Show Must Go On’ drama .

 Three major actors combine to produce an intensely complex piece of theatre in this much-performed piece. Matthew Kelly who  bellows and blasts his way as the sonorous self important, and slyly nasty big cheese. Julian Clary is the understated strangely mysterious but devoted servant Norman. His endless stories from his past feature untold horrors of an asylum: Mother decided  on a place for the ‘similarly off-centre’ at Colwyn Bay - a grey rug and a grey sea . . talk about bleak’. Eerily, he conveys the quasi-sinister undertones of Pinter’s unfathomable characters, along with a decision not to be boring  - ‘never despairing’ is Norman’s maxim. The third is the playwright, Ronald Harwood , an actor himself. He uses this piece to lament the destruction of war and celebrate the oddball heroes of the home front. 

It all works wonderfully well.

Cambridge Arts Theatre, daily until Saturday 16 October

https://www.cambridgeartstheatre.com/whats-on/dresser