Office party had lot to say

Press, 7 December 1976, Page 23

Office party had lot to say

By 1

KEN COATES

Everyone seemed to be talking at once in the “Armchair Theatre” play from TV I on Sunday evening, “Office Party.” Disillusionment, respectability. jealousy, frustration, authority, cynicism, male chauvinism, female pique — it had the lot.

The result was certainly a number of true-to-life caricatures, but at times they made the bank manager’s retirement party take on an air of ityThere were times when it seemed that Monty Py-thon-like, a bank inspector might emerge from under the lid of the piano, or that even a gang of stonemasons might start making a quarry out of the bank marble.

The idea of depicting the party as being held in the unlikely setting of the dignified bank chamber did, of course, have the advantage of providing ample reason for the impossible manager to hustle everyone out later.

But was it not stretching credibility just a little too much to imagine that such a stickler would have allowed such jollification within the sacred precints?

Perhaps his vanity, and the opportunity he was given to occupy the centre of the stage by playing the piano brought in specially for the occasion, overcame his sense of what was appropriate.

The play did, however; provide a fascinating study in contrasts — the authoritarian respectability of the manager, his successor’s subservience and insistence on convention, and the rather pathetic struggles for recognition by the office girls.

The star of “Poldark,” Angharad Rees, appeared in a modern role with the same zest and feeling for characterisation that marked her performance in that series.

She was the focal point for the “senitmentality” which the retiring manager so abhorred in a bank, and which of course was no less than the familiar pattern of human behaviour. The common male attitude of one standard for men and another for women was spelled out by the bank clerks’ contest.

And the play caught the nuances of the female response — the mixture of wanting to appear desirable, hence the revealing

dress, yet also wanting to be treated as a person.

There were also a number of delightful little cameos — such as the retiring manager practising his speech; the frustrated middle-aged spinster and her cynical remarks about men, and finally the “outraged” manager ordering everyone out because of "disgraceful goings-on in this bank.”

The play had a lot to say about people, but because it attempted to present so many human foibles and weaknesses some may have been lost in the crush.

A religious slot on a Sunday evening should provide viewers, whether church-goers or not, with something thought-provok-ing and even challenging.

But TVI does not appear to be facing up to the implications of dealing with religion and its relationship to topical moral issues of the day. It is one thing to make a token gesture with a five-minute “Plain Speaking” slot, but it is quite another to bring the insights of Christians and those of other religions to bear on vital questions affecting people’s lives.