Taking Steps

If the prolific Alan Ayckbourn has indeed written 81 plays (see Wikipedia), Taking Steps is Play No. 24, crafted way back in 1979. It’s very Ayckbourn and very English, to the point where this Ensemble production employs a Dialect Coach. What you have is a big, draughty house where the plumbing groans on three floors, and which Roland (Peter Kowitz), big in Buckets, wishes to purchase for dubious dancer/girlfriend Elizabeth (Christa Nicola).

At first glance, the set is just a pile of furniture jumbled inside a sort of racetrack, but gradually order is confirmed, with the front row of the audience pulling in their legs throughout to let the cast rush by. For ‘The Pines’ has its three floors – ground, bedrooms and attic — all staged as one, with the stairs between them mimed by the cast in prancing fashion. This is endlessly entertaining (Designer: Anna Gardiner), and the progress of the actors from the ground floor to the dank, dark attic is hilarious.

Roland has invited his lawyer to supervise the sale but the lawyer, no doubt warned, has deputised Tristram (Drew Livingston) — a stammering, jittery soul — to do the deed. Leslie (Andrew Tighe), his Yamaha motorbike in the front garden and his huge helmet in place, owns the house and now needs to desperately sell. The cast is completed by Mark (Simon London), the brother of Elizabeth, who sends everyone to sleep with woeful tales of his life; and Kitty (Emma Harvie), who camps in the attic and spends much of the play locked in a cupboard.

Mark Kilmurry’s production is uncertain how much it stays on the Ayckbourn path of Sad Comedy and how much it veers towards Farce. The actors who go for the comedy (Tighe, Livingston and Harvie) come out better, especially the jammering Tristram who ends up the big winner of this day and night of surprises.

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: Prudence Upton.