Table Manners

 

Review by Paul Towers, 10/6/24

Table Manners by Alan Ayckbourn

Directed by Russell Hughes

Produced by Leicester Drama Society

At The Little Theatre until Saturday 15^th June 2024

“Hilarious goings-on behind suburban curtains”

Table Manners is one part of the trilogy that is The Norman Conquests by Alan Aykbourn. The premise of the plays is that the same action is seen from three different aspects in three different rooms. Table Manners takes place in the dining room around the dining table.

Annie lives in a large suburban house caring for her demanding bedridden Mother. She has planned an illicit weekend in East Grinstead with Norman, her sister Ruth’s charming husband while her brother Reg and his wife Sarah are coming to look after Mother while she is away. Added to the melee is gormless Tom, Annie’s vet and wannabe lover.

Norman, anxious to rekindle the romp on the lounge carpet he had with Annie, has turned up early to collect her and but has stumbled into a family assembly. As the penny drops and Annie’s plans are revealed all hell breaks out.

Hollie Matusiewicz’s Annie is a perfect combination of fragility and loneliness as she wonders whether to go through with betraying her sister Ruth. Allan Smith’s Norman is a clown with an ulterior purpose. If he can’t laugh the ladies into bed he will charm them. The only person immune to his charms is his wife, career obsessed Ruth. (a fabulously demanding Tabz Fogg). But for sheer bitchiness there is nothing to beat Emma Bamford’s Sarah, a snobby Margo Leadbetter clone in equally garish outfits, while her put upon husband Reg (Freddie Dobrijevic) does his best to stand up to her, occasionally. Wandering around hoping that Annie will finally notice him is local vet Tom (Graham Muir).

With no-one really knowing exactly what is going on there is much confusion. This leads the hilarity of the play and the audience was laughing from start to finish.

So, if you find the pretentious snobbery and illicit goings on in suburbia hilarious then Table Manners is definitely for you. It runs at The Little Theatre until Saturday 15^th June.

Pics: Mary Jayne Harding Scott

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