We enjoyed it enormously, and were mesmerised by Vincent Cochrane, he was a polished performer. A laugh a minute.
Harlequinade is one of the lesser-known farces by Terence Rattigan, put on by the Oxford University Dramatic Society. The play opens with two of the leading characters, Arthur and Edna Gosport, a pair of life-long luvvies, rehearsing the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. They are making last-minute preparations on opening night, while bickering good-naturedly about lighting levels and whether or not they are too old to be playing the part of the star-crossed teenagers.
The couple, played by Vincent Cochrane and Jessica Hammett, are self-obsessed, pretentious, distracted and vain – an amusing depiction of a husband and wife for whom the real world outside the theatre doesn’t really exist. Long-suffering stage manager Jack Wakefield, played by James Corke-Webster, tries with little success to keep everyone in line as the night’s events unfold.
For tonight, as the programme promises, everything that could go wrong, does. Tantrums, resignations, long-lost relatives, a brush with the law, idiot understudies and seven young women locked in a dressing room plus various other surprises all combine to give Jack Wakefield the worst opening night ever. To add to his troubles, his fiancé is demanding that he find a moment to tell the two ageing divas that he plans to resign and won’t be following them around on the play’s 46-week tour.
The performances by the three lead characters were good, and well supported by the rest of the cast. Special mention should go to Andrew Campbell, who played four different parts, as well as Jodie Adams as both Joyce and Miss Fishlock, the hyper-nervous assistant.
Aside perhaps from the all-encompassing hold over the lives of the actors that a life in the theatre can entail, there aren’t any subtexts, themes or “messages” in the play – it’s a straightforward, well-acted piece of comedy that seems to flit past far more quickly than the hour for which it lasts. Very enjoyable.