Review: GROUND RULES, Theatre Royal Winchester - Tour

In programming a lovely proscenium arch theatre like the Theatre Royal Winchester, it must be a delight to be able to offer plays alongside the one-night comics and music acts to provide the local community with a wide range of shows, especially when the writer is one with reputation such as the late Eric Chappell who wrote the brilliant TV sitcom, Rising Damp. His last play, Ground Rules was presented for one night only as part of an autumn tour, which ends in Windermere later this month produced by The Crime and Comedy Theatre Company and Honalee Media, starring the company Artistic Director Martin Parsons and Producer Kate Ashmead as couple, Gerald and Judith. 

Chappell’s fame was built on 70s TV sitcoms Rising Damp and Only When I Laugh, and 80s TV comedies Home to Roost and Duty Free, and there are echoes of this style in this stage play. 

Set in 1989, the relationships also remind us of Ray Cooney’s raucous comedies or Alan Ayckbourn’s cleverly constructed plays from that period when seemingly ordinary middle-class people find themselves in a farcical situation that spins out of control. Yet the writing is not sharp enough, the situation never believable, and the language stilted . What’s more, the basic premise that a councillor invites a young woman, Jo, back to her home after she sees her being assaulted by her boyfriend, Ashley, hardly seems a perfect set up for a hilarious comedy. 

Director Bob Golding, himself an excellent comedy practitioner who does a very fine impersonation of Eric Morecambe, adds to this sense of watching an 80s TV show by lifting the main curtain with the house lights still on to reveal an empty set. It reminds you of seeing a TV sitcom recording in a TV studio and you half expect the warm-up man to come on and get the audience in the mood. This is compounded by a succession of TV sitcom theme tunes playing before each act including Butterflies, Please Sir, The Likely Lads and Are You Being Served? He does add some wonderful visual comedy which could have been lifted from a Morecambe and Wise sketch of the period with a delightfully well-timed bar stool drop, a very funny cocktail shaking scene and good business with a coffee cup filled tray, all well executed by Parsons as Gerald.

The set is designed to travel from venue to venue in a small transit with an odd collection of different sized half flats and just enough practical furniture to support the play. It creates a single sitting room and bar with a front door and a second door to the rest of the house. It’s décor and furnishings, together with Gerald’s argyle yellow tank top reinforce the 80s feel and there is amusing business with the mirror hanging on the fourth wall. 

The ‘Ground Rules’ in question do not become clear until halfway through the second half when we learn that Judith has laid down the one-sided rules of behaviour in their marriage for heavy drinking Gerald. Again, there is a sense that these rules should have been clear earlier on and might have provided a story arc for a whole series of TV sitcoms with Gerald and Judy becoming another couple like George and Mildred Roper, Hyacinth and Richard Bucket, or Victor and Margaret Meldrew. The relationship is not well established enough before the protagonists of flirty Jo (Bronte Alice-Tadman) and threatening Ashley (Joel Stern) are introduced to test the relationship and we realise late on the ground rules. As Gerald explains, you have to have Ground Rules to prevent unpleasant things happening before realising that they are mainly about controlling his own actions.

There are some gentle chuckles during the play and the cast work hard with the plot to breathe some life into it, but it is an anachronistic dated idea, the TV sitcom idea Eric Chappell wrote that never made it to the screen and its two-hour run time (including interval) does drag on somewhat. Yet we need more plays to draw audiences into live theatre and this is clearly a cost-effective way of filling the programme and we can expect more from their next visit in December when the same company brings A Christmas Carol to the venue with Colin Baker and Peter Purves, and that promises a much engaging evening.

** Two stars

Reviewed by: Nick Wayne

Ground Rules continues to tour until 11 November, with further information here