Benefactors

It seems that this production, postponed from last year’s COVID pile-up, has arrived exactly on time. Michael Frayn’s excellent play from 1984 is about an architect who wants to build higher and higher, cramming more people into an allotted space. And this week a local Sydney mayor called the same general plan, which had received high praise from the NSW Premier at a Sydney Leadership Dialogue, a ‘free-for-all for developers’ and ‘a Trojan horse for more shoebox-size apartments in suburbs that can barely cope’. Ouch.

Benefactors won Best Play in the 1984 Evening Standard and Laurence Olivier awards and it certainly still hums along, offering four roles of outstanding quality, pounced on by this brilliantly chosen cast. 

Set in the growing London of the 60s, in a great thrusting kitchen designed by Nick Fry, architect David (Gareth Davies) and highly organised wife Jane (Emma Palmer) meet at breakfast and evening meals. He’s got the difficult job of turning a small triangle of land in Basutho Road into a mighty people-holder, with two towering 50-storey blocks. 

Across the road are journalist Colin (Matt Minto) and uncertain, hesitant Sheila (Megan Drury). Sheila is more or less a constant visitor, frowned on by David, put up with by Jane. The cast is handled to perfection by director Mark Kilmurry. 

The action of the play runs in a succession of short scenes between the players, who hardly ever leave the stage. It’s difficult to pick a favourite, but nevertheless I will: Megan Drury is constantly amusing as Sheila, with her succession of needs and wants. A wan face to remember.

In the second half, Sheila picks up and actually finds something to do. Jane finds her feet, too, and moves in another direction, away from home. There’s always a new start, a new way of looking at things.

Coming two years after the uproarious Noises Off, this play proves that Michael Frayn, now nearing 90, is a master of gut-wrenching comedy.

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: Prudence Upton.