'Joining the Club' and 'Last Tango in Little Grimley'

There is a class of plays that are under-performed.  They have a run-time of less than twenty minutes (which puts them below the threshold of one-act play festivals), and yet they are still complete plays, with a narrative arc and character development.  They can be very useful proving grounds for actors and directors, but this requires companies to put on an evening of short plays, rather than looking for something bigger.  David Tristram’s “Joining the Club” is one such play - a neat, funny, satisfying piece of theatre, but seldom seen.  Tristram published it through his own “Flying Ducks Publications”, in a volume with the unrelated “Last Tango in Little Grimley”, so occasionally, as here, they get aired together.  It’s a simple two-hander; in this case we saw Alistair Banks and Cally Cooper playing the husband and wife coming to terms with simultaneous crises.  A pair of nicely-paced performances, bringing out both the comedy and the pathos of the piece.

Given the shortness of this opening play, there was an entr’acte from Mike Hutton, singing Tom Lehrer songs, accompanied by Marian Young on the piano and  by Stevie Parker on the stage for the (inevitable, given what was to follow) Masochism Tango.  For those of us who grew up singing along to Lehrer’s records, it was a difficult act of restraint to avoid joining in.

“Last Tango in Little Grimley” started with Alistair Banks returning to set-out the stage, this time as the stolid Bernard (and getting heckled from the audience for his pains).  Bernard is the set builder and technician of an ailing theatre company; a dwindling mix of dreamers and prima donnas, trying to put together a show that won’t lose money.  Joyce, obsessed with musicals, dense and easily distracted, was beautifully realised by Caroline Biggin.  Margaret (Stevie Parker revelling in the physical and visual comedy) is the over-the-top actress who probably wouldn’t be in the company but for the fact that she gets to be star of the show.  And then there’s Gordon (Rae Tugwell), exasperated chairman of the society, driven by his own ego to believe that his ridiculous play can galvanise his disparate cast into a production that will save the society.

Lots of fun from the performance and a very happy audience - as well as some painful recognition from the fellow-thespians amongst them!

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