★★★☆☆
Have you heard about the lockdown party which broke social distancing rules? Mike Bartlett’s new monologue couldn’t have arrived at a more timely moment. Not that this amiable vignette could ever be confused with a David Hare-like call to the barricades. Bartlett’s eye is fixed on the domestic and the mundane; with a few tweaks, the script could almost serve as the synopsis for an episode from the old-school version of The Archers.
Over the course of just one hour, his narrator takes us inside the mind of a young-ish woman, Helen, who finds herself obsessing over the unconventional behaviour of the elderly neighbour who gives the piece its title. At a time when everyone is supposed to be keeping contacts to the minimum, Mrs Delgado — who is very much a free spirit — welcomes visitor after visitor and eventually organises a doorstep neighbourhood party which, inevitably, gets slightly out of hand.
After days and days of watching from her window, Helen — who could be a youthful version of one of Alan Bennett’s curtain twitchers — has grown more and more irritated. Eventually, her frustration overflows. Bartlett is mining those contradictory feelings that bubbled away in so many of us during the months when we had to become hermits.
It’s not his fault that the piece’s impact has been blunted by a late change in casting: Ellen Robertson — one half of the comedy duo Britney — replaces Rakhee Sharma and is reading from a script. Directed by Clare Lizzimore she delivers a fine performance, taking sips from a mug, but the atmosphere is, inevitably, one step closer to a radio play.
The parallels with Bennett are hard to ignore. Bartlett conjures the same gentle laughter from the very mention of a type of biscuit. Bennett, on the other hand, would have pushed the characters that little bit harder. Bartlett leaves Helen and the old lady on the verge of getting to know each other. It’s a leisurely and competent first act. Bennett would have given us the second too without adding a minute to the running length.
To December 21, oldfirestation.org.uk
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