Humble Boy

A very talented troupe of six actors led us through an evening of learning some basics of bee-keeping, a little bit of astrophysics and included a sorry tale of a mother and son at loggerheads since the death of her husband, the boy’s father. Despite this compact description of the unusual contents of a story, it also involved a lot of comedy - a seeming absurdity considering the subject matter. Costumes throughout were very much in keeping with the time and colourful. The title character had some quite outlandish outfits but again, all in natural keeping with his role.  

The first scene was the disposal of a beehive, very cleverly staged with characters in appropriate clothing and accompanied by the famous “Flight of the Bumblebee” by Rimsky-Korsakov. This was a night-time event and performed under dimmed lighting for effect. When the lights came up for the next scene we were met with a stunning sight of a beautiful garden with brightly-coloured flowers, neat borders, a smart garden shed and a set of garden table and chairs. Many plaudits to the set builders.

First we met the Humble boy, Felix (Oliver Hickling) and a family friend, Mercy Lott (Vinny Shepherd).  Felix is a very intelligent, reticent boy but suffers from a stutter. The amount of dialogue he had for the two plus hours of the play was complicated and in much quantity. This was managed in a most effective manner with no apparent effort and characterised extremely well. Mercy, a family friend, was the calming influence on the other persons and made a lovely contrast to the other rather volatile mourners. Flora Humble (Eileen Coan) was the snobby, adulterous widow who was quite overbearing and controlling to not only her son but most others as well. Her various changes of mood and again much dialogue was well enacted throughout the evening. Her lover, George Pye (Jason Evans) was a bit of a rough diamond and easily managed to upset the rest of the family at some point with no great effort. His daughter, Rosie Pye (Carrie Salisbury) and also the former girl-friend of Felix was an integral part of the end of act one as she epitomises the loving mother to her daughter - despite Felix not being aware that she is also his child. The final person to mention is the gardener, Jim (John Shepherd) - a gentle and pleasant man with a kind demeanour and would appear to be just there to give Felix help and hints about bumblebees and gardening. He is a seemingly less important character within the plot until the final scene when all is revealed and Flora and Felix are able to start to rebuild their relationship.  

Overall, an eclectic mix of people, entertained us with a complicated story of a death, relationships, loss and love and the different ways of dealing with these. Congratulations to director, Jane Vrettos, the production team, backstage helpers and the accomplished actors.    

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