The Stage

Black Eyed Susan

Published Thursday 13 September 2007 at 17:30 by Hugh Homan

After two years, some millions of pounds, and an enormous effort from a vast team, the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds is again up and running and (as Timothy West said in his opening night prologue), “restored for this and plays of every age”.

This Georgian theatre gem looks stunning - new seating (pit, circle and galleries each with their own entrances), a new thrust to the stage, the ‘cloudy’ ceiling restored to perfection and with an impressive and architecturally innovative new bar and resources area, part of - but quite separate from - the old theatre. Artistic director Colin Blumenau may justly feel pleased and proud of the achievement that the team which he led and the dream which has been his for a decade or more, has come to such spectacular fruition.

To inaugurate the new theatre and set it off on its next 200 years Blumenau has chosen a Georgian play, a nautical melodrama by Douglas Jerrold in a new version by Carl Miller. It tells of our hero William after his return from three years at sea back to his lovely black eyed wife. Needless to say Susan is penniless and at the mercy of her wicked landlord and, later, the dastardly captain of William’s ship. However, as you may expect, all turns out well in the end.

With the help of some appropriately judged musical accompaniment from Annemarie Lewis-Thomas, the company plays the piece for all its worth. How we cheered William’s ultimate salvation, how we marvelled at designer Kit Surrey’s wonderful box set. Philip Ralph was a splendid hero, honest and true, and how we were moved by the plight of Sophia Linden as the lovely Susan. We hissed Steven Osborne as the machinator Doggrass and warmed to the basic goodliness of Luke Shaw as Gnatbrain and his equally sensible partner Dolly, played with sincerity by Janet Greaves.

It was an evening to savour and remember.