Life of Riley

Prodigious playwright Alan Ayckbourn often peoples his plays with unseen characters, but ‘Life of Riley’, his 74th play, marks the first time he has used the invisible person as the principal protagonist. George Riley, despite being handed a death sentence in the first scene, deftly continues manipulating his cast of dysfunctional characters and their tangled relationships to his own advantage.

The set construction team (Brian Buck, John Gardner and Mike Watson) must be congratulated on producing a fine-looking set and managing to fit three gardens and a farmyard into the confined stage space without it looking too crowded. This allowed action to proceed smoothly from one scene to another with just a change of lighting. Lighting too was spot-on (pardon the pun) conveying the time of day perfectly. Set in the present day, Di Buck (Wardrobe) has chosen costumes that match the characters well.

Laugh out loud moments are rather sparse in this tragicomedy, but directors Mike Watson and Donna West have made sure the characters are more than the stereotypes that they first seem, keeping our interest. Di Buck was wonderful as the overbearing wife to Vic Milne’s rather uninspiring doctor husband, while Michele Arkle gave us a great portrayal of ‘Essex girl’ Tamsin, hinting that there was much more beneath the surface. Her rather bewildered husband Jack, nicely portrayed by Rupert Bogarde, was always ready to gloat about his wealth and spoilt daughter (a touching appearance at the very end by Shana Cooper). Ingrid Bond gave us plenty of angst as she tried to decide whether to return to ex-husband George, and Peter Dawson was perfectly taciturn as her new love, Simeon.

At the interval I was rather puzzled as to how the story would be resolved, but act 2, with its rather faster pace, made sure that most of the loose ends were tied up satisfactorily after George’s rather unlikely death.

Ayckbourn can be quite difficult to pull off successfully, but this group has done that with aplomb. The well-developed characters and excellent set made this production stand out and it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening’s entertainment. 

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