Nostalgia isn’t quite what it used to be

THE Lyceum Players’ nostalgic season to mark its 80th anniversary pushes the envelope on what constitutes nostalgia with this one — or does it?

Though it seems pretty fresh — possibly thanks to hours of TV time over the years — Richard Harris’s play celebrates its own 30th anniversary this year. So among the likes even of “Saturday Night At The Crown” from the Sixties and “Blithe Spirit” from the early Forties in this greatest-hits season, it’s something of a spring chicken.

But there remains, at least for some parts of the country, an element of time past about the Eighties: the middle-class society of weekend cricket, of cads and bounders from all professions meeting to sort out the team from the other village, the well-kept pitch and the pavilion with its tea-table, courtesy of the captain’s wife, are certainly less familiar today.

A more recent play on exactly the same subject, “The English Game”, gets by merely with a few chaps sitting on a patch of grass: wives are missing, the pavilion a distant memory.

Ean Burgon’s production for the Lyceum does, of course, have a pavilion, and wives, and cads and bounders, and remains as funny as ever.

The show is a spirited microcosm of the middle classes: arrogant young solicitor (Steve Nathaniel), fusspot captain (the slightly underplaying Phil McCarthy), long-suffering captain’s wife (the always terrific Maggie Blaszczok), sad devils for whom a match means friends (Cliff Myatt), hopeless philanderers (Ean Burgon, suitably cowed), an apparent tough guy (a funny Matthew Allen) whose wife (Lois Kelly, stealing the show) treats him like a baby, which he loves.

There is even a couple of what today we would call WAGs (Kathryn McGrane, Rachel Mellor) for good measure. Most of the women are patronised, but most are far more rounded people than their cricket-obsessed menfolk.

The set is a very full but not cramped affair, with pavilion terrace, a couple of rooms and passageways off, all very solid looking.

The performance on opening night was a little uneven and off the pace, but this is a frighteningly difficult comedy to get right from cold. It will improve; here’s to nostalgia.

PG