Yarnbombers

Having climbed the stairs to the studio on the 5th floor of the building (the lift was out of action) on a hot afternoon, one had some empathy with the three elderly residents we met in the care home in which this play was set. It was tempting to use the comfortable-looking easy chairs greeting us on the open set to assist our recovery.

There was a reference in the script to Richard Osman’s “Thursday Murder Club” and this excellent new comedy by local author, Keith Burton, had a little similarity. Here the residents, threatened by the closure not only of their home but also of the local haberdashery (the ladies were very keen on their knitting) conspired to take preventative action.  The opportunity to do so arose when the Mayor, Amy Spry, planning a Tour de Ridings cycling event, was looking to allocate refreshment stations at suitable points on the route.  When the care home manager volunteered her Bleak House and the Mayor was due to visit to unveil the associated sign, the team of three sprung into action (or as close to springing as their advanced years and a dodgy leg would allow).  The original sign was replaced by a bit of yarnbombing, which is defined as a form of street art which replaces spray paint with stitches, the “transformation of everyday objects into vibrant textile installations”, to quote the programme note.  You will no doubt have seen knitted items decorating pillar boxes, bollards etc.  In this case, the item concerned is revealed as an image bearing a remarkable likeness to the Mayor.  I must not give too much away but suffice to say that, according to the team of actual yarnbombers from Ripon, who attended the performance I saw, some sizeable pudding basins had been required to provide the base for a certain part of the anatomy.  A bit of dexterity involving an anagram of the original inscription on the sign completed the job.      

This humorous scenario was brought to life with excellent performances from the cast of eight. Richard Hunt played Freddie, the sole male occupant of the Blue Day room, sometimes frustrated by the ladies’ attitudes, with a history behind that leg injury not unconnected with the Mayor’s past.  Carolyn Craven and Gillian Myers made a good partnership as Grace and Hattie, the ladies with the flying needles, needing little persuasion to enter into the conspiracy.  The latter character is written as one who is not always up to speed with what the others have in mind and there were several laughs at her expense because of her misunderstandings and malapropisms.  There was an amusing character in the form of the local vicar, Kev the Rev, one of those with-it clergymen who perhaps tries too hard to be more of a man of the people than the more traditional man of the cloth. Matthew Jones succeeded in extracting all the humour he could from his character and his appearance in vest and running shorts for the exercise class brought much approval from the female members of the audience.

The task of maintaining some sort of order in the care home fell to the manager, Fiona and her assistant, Casey, the latter very keen that rules were always obeyed.  Jo Sykes gave us a good idea of the frustrations which management of such an establishment might bring. Those involving the behaviour of another resident, who never makes an appearance but is regularly the subject of telephone calls from the authorities after disappearances from the home, were always amusing. Marie Isbister had taken over the role of Casey at fairly short notice but gave an excellent performance as the dedicated assistant. As the unfortunate Mayor, Louise Thatcher coped well with the sight of the image designed to replicate her and Matt Hills more or less succeeded in keeping her in order as her escort.       

The director and cast coped well with a very small stage and, although scene changes were confined to the second act, these were slick and not without some amusement as an unknown character (bearing a remarkable resemblance to the play’s director) delivered the item which bore a certain resemblance to the Mayor. This was a thoroughly entertaining production which made a valid point in that elderly people might not always accept their fate without striking back.

The descent to ground level presented no problems for us, but one could only sympathise with the cast and crew faced with the get-out, involving the much more difficult task of removing the set and all the props. Suddenly those chairs in the Blue Day room must have seemed not quite so easy.                        

 

 

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