Confusions

The Players return to live stage performance featured three One Act plays by Sir Alan Ayckbourne CBE, who is an
Olivier and Tony Award winning playwright. He lives in Scarborough and has written and produced over 87 plays where,
in the Stephen Joseph Theatre, most of them have been premiered. It is claimed that he is the second most performed
playwright after Shakespeare! “Confusions”, first performed in 1974, is made up of five interconnected one act pieces –
three of which were chosen by Helens Bay Players.

In “Between Mouthfuls” two couples sitting at nearby tables in a restaurant, realise they have an unwelcome bond.
At one table Johnnie Rea and Iryna Kennedy played Mr and Mrs Pearce, who constantly bicker about the fact that he has
been away for 3 weeks on a working holiday. Iryna presented as a difficult and suspicious spouse while Johnnie tried to
pour oil on troubled waters. The other couple were Lorraine Stevenson and Michael Crutchley as Polly and Martin. The
latter only wanted to talk about how he had held everything together while his boss was away, while his wife was
completely disinterested. As the Waiter, Stephen Connolly moved between tables with ‘waiter talk’ while snippets of
their conversations were heard, creating a degree of ‘double entendre’ and much comedy. As usual Stephen’s comic
timing came into focus and all five actors offered different characterisations. The twist at the end made for an excellent
denouement.

“A Talk in the Park” came next with 4 strangers sitting on park benches trying to get some peace and quiet.
Played by Kevin Quinn, Arthur arrived and proceeded to bore the pants off Tammy Quinn as Beryl on the subject of
collecting Cigarette cards. Beryl moved to Charles’ bench and launched into the story of her ‘bastard’ husband
whose letter she had been attempting to read when Arthur joined her. Of course, she forced Charles (Clark Chambers) to
get up and move to Doreen’s park bench where he moaned about “the old days”. Wendy Quinn took the role of Doreen,
an elderly lady suspicious of men’s intentions and she soon moved to the fourth bench where Ernest (Chris Woods) was
quietly reading his book. The paranoid woman harped on about taking her dog to the vet for “the snip!” and
unsurprisingly Ernest moved over to the first bench beside Arthur to moan about his wife! Each player brought credible
character to their role while just sitting reading but Wendy acted constantly, feeding the birds etc. Her facial expressions
were disparate! All fulfilled their roles giving the feeling that each was lonely and longing to interact. The scene ended
with everybody talking at once to grab the attention of their original companions

Finally “Gosforth’s Fete” featured Stephen Connolly as the aforementioned Gosforth – local Publican who is running the
village fete and having trouble with the tannoy system. Typically, Milly the tea lady (Tara Stewart) reveals that she is
pregnant with his child, just when the loud speaker begins to work so everyone, including her fiancé Stuart hears. Played
by Michael Crutchley, he turns up in an aggravated state and the local Vicar (William Hunter) tries to calm things down.
Unfortunately, the tea urn refused to turn off and caused much background amusement with Tara as they fill tea cup after
cup to prevent a flood! Rosemary-Jayne Brangam took the role of Mrs Pearce, the rather snooty Councillor who was there
to ‘open’ the fete. She got drenched in the rain and then electrocuted by water getting into the amplifier and microphone
she was using for her speech! Tara, Rosemary-Jayne and William each gave credible performances but the undoubted
stars were Michael and Stephen. Reminiscent of Windsor Davis in “It ain’t half Hot Mum”, Michael commanded the
stage with his antics as he became increasingly enebriated from drinking a bottle of sherry offered to calm, him, while
Stephen’s sustained underlying panic about the ‘baby’ news, the wolf cubs out of control behaviour, the late arrival of the
marching band and the heavy rain, was a tour de force.

The scripts of the three short plays were gifts of both subtle and ‘laugh out loud’ comedy and Tara directed them all with
polish. The “Between Mouthfuls” set was bright and suitable while the others were played in black box style. Props were
excellent and appropriate with good attention to detail – restaurant food, menus etc.; four nice if rather new park benches
and bunting, tea urn and real amplifier. Costumes provided by the cast were appropriate and Lighting/Sound good
(especially well-timed sound effects).

In spite of feeling under the weather I really enjoyed my evening with “Confusions” and thank everyone involved.
I hope I didn’t pass on any germs

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