The Stage

The Unrest Cure

Published Friday 11 November 2011 at 11:57 by Catherine Gerbrands

Ernest Hudlestone, proprietor of a quiet Dorset B&B, is overheard on a train bemoaning his dull life of routine with spinster sister Cecilia by a pair of young siblings at leisure. When Ernest’s confidant James suggests an Unrest Cure, as offered in the Saki short story where two people in a similar predicament are forcibly removed from their rut by a mischievous stranger, scheming Virginia and her long suffering brother Charlie decide to have some fun and take a detour to the Seaview Hotel.

Leonie Scott-Matthews (Mrs Thomas), Tom Yeates (James), Eva Gray (Cecilia) and Math Sams (Ernest) in The Unrest Cure at Pentameters Theatre, London Photo: Zoran

Rob Groves and Simon Godziek’s new play is inspired by PG Wodehouse and has all the required ingredients with cut-glass tricksters, mistaken identities and witty absurdities. The cast are pitch perfect in their comfortable Wodehousian caricatures and manage to bring enough warmth to their roles as to engage us in their nostalgic world.

Recent Poor School graduate Mark Donahue takes on foppish Charlie, the reluctant accomplice, with clear relish, while Eva Gray as the wistful Cecilia has a chance to shine in the second half in the difficult role of adding a little dramatic pathos to the fun.

Pentameters’ production may give Saki cause to roll in his grave at the frivolity injected into his rather more sinister tale, but the result is a thoroughly enjoyable piece of light theatre to which Wodehouse would perhaps not give his name, but would certainly give his stamp of approval.