A Month of Sundays

“A Month of Sundays” is a play written by the Bob Larby and is set in a rest home revolving around two residents Cooper and Aylott, who are in the early stages of physical and mental decline respectively.  The interactions between Cooper and Nurse Wilson and then between him and the cleaning lady, Mrs Baker are poignant episodes requiring timing and the development of pathos. There are not very interesting but typical visits for Cooper from his daughter and her husband. 
The play focuses on the elements of friendship, sexuality and class war as well as the fears of growing old and losing physical and mental capacities. It is set in a typical nursing home bed-sitting room with exit doors to the corridor and the en-suite bathroom.  The set dressing was very accurate with great attention to detail.
The interaction between Cooper (Martyn Kille), and Nurse Wilson (Sarah Maker) who was making her debut for the society, was particularly poignant and they developed their characters well throughout the whole production.  Mrs Baker (Jo Walker) was so credible in her role that everyone in the audience could identify well with it. Aylott (Paul Foster), whose character was in some ways quite similar to Cooper although a much quieter person suffered quite badly from memory loss. These four roles could well be typical of people within any rest home. Equally Cooper’s daughter Julia (Jacqui Hand) and son-in-law Peter (Richard Meeson) were typical visitors.   
This is quite a difficult play to produce but was clearly well directed with the appropriate degree of sensitivity by directors, Teresa Enke and Jackie Foster and producer, Bobbie Tomkins. It was well rehearsed and the characters and their relationships developed clearly throughout the production.  Special praise must go to Martyn Kille playing “Cooper” though who maintained the persona throughout despite having such a mammoth task tackling all those lines and being on stage for the whole of the play.
Congratulations to everyone involved with this production whether on stage, back stage or front of house for a tremendously entertaining evening. The audience had a real chuckle time and were most appreciative. Well done!

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