It’s always a bad sign when you come out of a play enthusing about the set more than the writing or the acting. So let me start by saying what a fine job the designer, Jonathan Fensom, has done here. Michael Wynne’s comedy is about three sets of middle-class parents camping in luxury tents on a Welsh farm. At the interval my friend got out his iPhone to show me pictures of the tent — a canvas-covered cottage, effectively — where he’d just been “glamping” with his family. Fensom had nailed it, as well as creating a grassy glade that puts you in holiday mode from the off.
The play itself is less fully achieved. Too much of its first half is spent satirising both the external details of the holiday — the “at-one-with-nature vibe,” as the uppity Amanda puts it, before demanding a parmesan shaver — and the external awfulness of the neighbours. When everyone’s gnarly secrets come out over a dandelion-wine-fuelled dinner in the darker second half, it’s hard to care. Not enough character groundwork has been laid down. Too much stage time has been eaten up by middling jokes about middle-class mores.
Wynne has some ideas worth pursuing, such as the varying parenting styles. Our decent protagonists, Justine and Alan, remind themselves that the holiday is for the kids. Bridget and Rory have laminated schedules. Amanda and Alistair have brought iPads, gallons of booze and their senses of entitlement: “This is our holiday too, it’s not just about the kids.”
But not enough happens for us to want to get to know these people better. A crack comic cast doesn’t quite click. Lucy Montgomery, a fine comic performer, looks lost playing the ordinary Justine. And though Sarah Hadland (the best friend in Miranda) is virtuosic as Bridget, this know-all teacher is too irredeemable to get beyond sitcom obnoxiousness. If Elliot Levey’s sad-sack Rory still loves her, he’s a moron. Hattie Ladbury and Oliver Milburn have more to get their teeth into as Amanda and Alistair, but Dean Lennox Kelly is just grumpy as Alan. The violent outburst in which he blames his woes on greedy bankers is Wynne overplaying his hand.
There are some nice lines, especially when Lisa Palfrey is on as the hopeless, well-meaning manager, handing out hazardous toys for the kiddies. But Angus Jackson’s production can’t summon up conviction for a play that needs a more evolved story with which to tease out its ideas. Lovely scenery, though.
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Box office: 01243 781312, to June 16 Sponsored by Pridewatch Events and Graylingwell Park