Review: ACCOLADE, Theatre Royal Windsor
Photo credit: Jack Merriman
There is something rather refreshing about seeing an old play revived and finding it fascinating, not just because of its reflection of the time it was written, but also relevant to the world we live in today.
Seventy-five years after Emlyn Williams wrote and starred in Accolade at the Aldwych Theatre in London, Sean Mathias is restaging it at the Theatre Royal Windsor before a short regional playhouse tour. The author’s works are less frequently presented, yet the play is extremely well written, with a sense that it may have had an autobiographical context being about a married successful working-class writer who actively explores his sexual needs outside the marriage. It must have been quite shocking to audiences in the days before the Lord Chamberlain’s Office role as theatre censor was stopped. Even today, the revelations and responses of the characters remains uncomfortable and the proliferation of pornography available so readily on the internet means that the themes seem relevant to the way people and their relationships are seen by friends, family and the public. It may be set in 1950 but you can imagine the same scenario playing out in the family home of any MP or celebrity.
Will Trenting (played by Ayden Callaghan) is a successful author married to Rona (a delightfully well-to-do Honeysuckle Weeks) with a young son Ian (a very convincing Louis Holland) who announces he is being knighted for his services to literature in the 1950 New Year honours list. But we soon learn that he is a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ character, a respectable author in public but a man who indulged his sexual needs by returning to his Rotherhithe roots for parties he hosts in local pubs. Callaghan plays him as a rather stiff insecure man and we don’t glimpse enough of the bohemian lothario who inhabits an alternative world away from his home. His elevation to a knighthood draws attention to his hidden life and we soon meet Phyllis and Harold (Sarah Twomey and Gavin Fowler) who help organise the parties and invite the guests. When the father of one of the young party goers, Daker (Narinder Samra), turns up at his home, his cosy arrangement with his wife who turns a blind eye to his partying is threatened with exposure of the truth to his son.
The crisis in his life caused by the arrival of Dakar with his allegations of illegal activity threatening to wreck his relationships. How does his wife feel to discover the reality behind his partying? How should they explain the consequences to their son? How do his loyal secretary Albert (Jamie Hogarth) and his publisher Thane (David Phelan) respond and react to the accusations ? How do close friends like Marian (Sara Crowe) react to the shocking revelation of a double life and is it any different to her own husband’s secret extra martial affairs? There is even a sense that Daker may not be all he seems, perhaps a con man exploiting some half-truths he has discovered, a sort of Goole from An Inspector Calls. The narrative hints at twists and keeps you guessing and intrigued.
Julie Godfrey’s magnificent set of wooden panelling, shelves of books, artwork and Rona’s period wardrobe give a strong sense of location and period. The ticking clock, smell of herbal cigarettes and the period wireless used to set time between scenes adds immensely to the atmosphere. Mathias’ direction is crisp and well-paced with some good blocking of key scenes with many of the cast on stage. The use of a gauze and spotlights add a mystical freeze frame element to reflect on the relationship between the parents and their son. There is a feeling that, at the start, Ian is isolated by his parents from reality but by the end, his parents choose isolation from reality for themselves. Another celebrity disappearing from view having been caught in some misdemeanour.
The play works at several levels, which makes it so interesting to watch. It is a period drama. It is piece about the process of writing literature and the need for real life experiences to inform the writing. It is a play about the challenges of creating a successful family unit to bring up children. It is a play about human nature, as one character suggests, everyone has a dark secret in their life, the exposure of which would have a disruptive effect on the rest of their lives. Like An Inspector Calls, it is a morality play and Emlyn Williams’ writing deserves to be recognised alongside JB Priestley’s play, written five years before, and it is hoped that this production might be as successful as Steven Daldry’s 1992 production of the earlier play which ran and ran.
You can catch Accolade in Windsor, Bath, Cambridge, Guildford and Richmond during June and July and we urge you to see the show and support these important regional playhouses.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
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