ACT Reviews 2022-2023 Season

neighbours – determined to be seen in a good light and in some ways quite compassionate towards Miss Shepherd as long as it in no way inconvenienced them! Beverley and Giles made the characters relatable as well as in some ways the nosey neighbour caricatures. Susan Mullen gave a soft and gentle performance as the social worker who grew in confidence over the years, starting out as inexperienced and ending up as the one person brave enough to go into the van to check on Miss Shepherd after she had passed away. Despite the gentleness she also captured the "I know best" attitude that Alan talks about when she tries to encourage Alan to have more of a friendly dialogue with Miss Shepherd, as well as the iron determination needed to repeatedly come back over the years despite Miss Shepherd making it very clear at times that she was not wanted! These attributes were delivered with a beautiful subtlety that again made the character very believable. Kevin Riley as the Lout and Underwood created two suitably creepy and unlikeable characters – the only two with no redeeming features in the play. Kevin appeared to play both roles with relish, enjoying being "the baddies", and creating an atmosphere of tension among the audience whenever he was on stage. This was an achievement considering the lighter atmosphere prevalent for the majority of the play. David Pilkington and Tilly Chapman did well in making their multiple roles distinct, and ably executed all of them. Overall, I thought the direction of the production was excellent – as previously expressed, it was easy to focus on all the characters on stage at once, there was no blocking or upstaging, and everyone appeared to have an excellent understanding of their characters. The one thing that confused me a little was that there did not appear to be any attempt to age the characters over the 15 years that the play is set. Of course, I would expect Alan 2 as the narrator speaking to us from after all the events are concluded to have remained the same, but James's Alan, Miss Shepherd, Rufus, Pauline, the social worker and Mrs Bennett I would have expected to see some signs of aging to help the audience appreciate the passage of time. As it was, I only realised so much time had passed when Alan comments to the social worker that Miss Shepherd has been living in his garden for 15 years.

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