"The Facts Of Life” A Good Production

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32395, 7 September 1970, Page 14

"The Facts Of Life” A Good Production

“The Facts of Life.” By Roger Maedougall. Directed by Walter Pym. Repertory Theatre. September 5-12. Running time: 8.00 to 10.5 p.m.

“The Facts of Life” at first! seemed a surprising choice for the Repertory Society; it has become dated without acquiring an antique charm, the society it draws from has become even more of a cliche, and it needs sc little adaptation for successful radio performance that one expected its visual impact to be limited. In view of such apprehensions, it was a pleasant surprise to find that Walter Pym’s production offers some kind of refutation to all three charges: it is acted more or less in period and thus capitalises on a welldeveloped mood, the stereotyped characters are accepted for what they are, and there are a lot of interesting nuances of gesture and expression which fill out otherwise flat situations.

The part of the rakish old! gambling grandfather, for' instance, reads like (and is often produced as) a rather blatant device to give full scope to a stock situation: the family feud. In Brian Deavoll’s hands, however, the character was not only exploited well as a type, but it also gave amplitude and proportion to his grandson’s achievements at the races. Brian Deavoll looked very' much the “gay old dog” (al-! though his costume might have contributed more) whose gaiety is beginning to wear: very thin: his manifest failure seems all the more ridiculous when his grandson, having; forsaken the traditional cur-i sus honorum, finds a mathematically sound formula for exploiting the “old dogs.” In the juvenile role, Michael O’Connor looked very promising; his occasional impertinence was a little exaggerated, but the mysterious revelation of his behaviour was handled more than competently. The rest of the cast all

made good use of their experience: Joan Peel was the delinquent’s mother, Richard Harvest the frantic father, and Daphne Milburn the dis■illusioned grandmother, John Peel’s voice sometimes developed an edge which verged on farcical hysteria, and this certainly helped to give the role depth; Daphne Milburn managed to use just the right amount of extravagant gesture to remind one continually of her profession. Dorothy Hart had the kind of role for which she has already proved her aptitude, and handled it well; Christopher Howell looked appropriately shifty, but his speech sometimes lacked vitality. , This is, certainly, a good production, and the only I quarrel one can have is with the play as a script: “The Facts of Life” will satisfy a relaxed audience rather than extend - ■ alert one, and will appeal more to the casual theatre-goer who wants good light entertainment than to the theatre enthusiast

—H. D. McN.