Where once wandered William Wordsworth now meet Jed, Tom, Lizzie and Joy. But although the two couples are following the same Lake District hills, dales, tarns and rocky footpaths, their reasons for taking to the heights above the “fields of heaven” are very different.
This is an adventurous and, thankfully, very satisfying double bill of double-handed new plays.
Usually associated with youth theatre productions, John Moorhouse’s contribution - The Gift - sees lifelong friends Tom and Jed taking what will ultimately be their last Lakeland pilgrimage together.
Jim Kitson is endearing as the blustery but essentially well meaning Jed, complete with a backpack full enough to survive a nuclear holocaust. Noel White is equally convincing as the clearly more sensitive Tom, whose reason for wanting to scale the summit becomes more apparent as their jokes, jibes and recollections are slowly revealed.
In Glory Glory, Keswick’s Theatre By The Lakes associate writer, Lisa Evans, sets the story three months later on the same Grasmere paths where two 60-somethings have bunked out of their adult-education gospel singing class to take to the hills. They are comparative strangers - Lizzie, a straightish-laced retired headteacher, now nursing a husband with Alzheimer’s, and Joy, a forthright singleton constrained by responsibilities to daughters and an octogenarian mother.
The chemistry between Anne Kavanagh’s chalk-and-cheese Lizzie and Nicky Goldie’s Joy works well as their rebellious walk takes on unpredicted dimensions.
The balance between both plays works well - their plots touch and go effectively and the humour/pathos fusion is excellent.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
Content is copyright © 2012 The Stage Media Company Limited unless otherwise stated.
All RSS feeds are published for personal, non-commercial use. (What’s RSS?)
