* A scene from The Entertainer featuring, from left, Victoria White, Roberta Bailey and Grahame Smith.
Washed-up music hall comic Archie Rice shows no emotion as
he trots through his dated and pathetic routines in front of his bored
audience.
And he brings exactly the same non-emotions to bear as he
deals with his dysfunctional family.
The character, which has become an icon of the British
stage, and his bickering relatives are brought faithfully and believably to life
- although there’s precious little of that left in Archie – by a very useful
cast as Llangollen’s Twenty Club amateur players staged The Entertainer, John
Osbourne’s legendary drama, at the Town Hall over three nights last week.
Archie is hanging precariously to the increasingly bedraggled
coattails of old-fashioned music hall as its world is shattered by the advent
of television in the mid-1950s.
There’s not a trace of joy in him as he goes through his
down-at-heel comedy routines for an audience which wants to be there even less
than he does.
He’s grown this hard emotionless shell over many years, developing
the motto which he brings out in one of his little songs which has the lines, “If
they see you’re blue they’ll look down on you, why should I bother to care?”
Back home there’s his old dad, himself a retired musical
hall turn, his alcoholic wife and a son who preferred a spell in jail to doing
his National Service and being shot at on some foreign field.
Catalyst for tipping the delicate balance which exists between
them is an unexpected visit by Archie’s daughter who has just broken up with her boyfriend.
Archie, a role once occupied on film by Laurence Olivier, was
played with panache by Twenty Club stalwart David Edgar employing just the
right measure of deadpan comedy and pathos. He also took a prodigious amount of
lines easily in his long stride.
His drunken wife Pheobe was neatly portrayed with both sympathy
and emotion by Roberta Bailey who is a newcomer to the group.
And although it was only his second time on stage for the
club, Grahame Smith very competently handled the role of Billy Rice, Archie’s
father.
Another club second-timer, Victoria White, gave a very
polished performance as Archie’s granddaughter Victoria and Dan Pedley, who has
had three previous roles for the group, was right for the role of Archie’s son,
Frank.
The Entertainer’s other son, Mick, we don’t meet but merely
see the family mourning after word comes through that he’s been killed in
action as he faithfully serves his country in the army which his brother had side-stepped.
This development at least stirs something in Archie but not for
too long as he’s soon back on stage doing his patter again.
But as he strides off into the dark at the end of his act we
could be left wondering if this is the final curtain for him. Or, actually, like
The Entertainer himself, could we really give a damn?
This was a nice piece of work by Barry Cook, taking his
first stint as director after many appearances on stage for the club, ably
assisted as usual by a small army of backstage volunteers.
A neat touch towards the end was bringing on powerful gospel singer Sandra Butterworth to join in with the farewell to father Billy who dies near the end of the piece. That, unlike Archie, was full of emotion.
