Theatre Royal, Glasgow
Three stars
Things appear to be changing in what amounts to a feature-length episode penned by long-serving cast member David Lonsdale, who revives his role of village buffoon David Stockwell. It's 1969, patrician landlord of the Aidensfield Arms, Oscar, is recuperating from an illness in Bridlington, and chirpy Scouse barmaid Gina has hired a jukebox. The Graduate has finally reached the local fleapit, and the neighbourhood cop shop has even had the audacity to put Matt Milburn's PC Joe Malton – a Lancastrian of all things – on the beat. All of which conspires together in a plot which somehow manages to combine David's late night rabbit poaching with the Irish Troubles.
Despite such action-packed longeurs that flit between the pub interior and the grounds of Lord Ashfordly's estate, Keith Myers' production sticks to the TV show's gently nostalgic template that also involves series veteran Steven Blakely's effete PC Geoff Younger. With society clearly collapsing elsewhere, one can only speculate on what horrors the 1970s brought to Aidensfield.
Three stars
If anyone fancies a glimpse of what
some imaginary little Britain should remain like forever, they could
do worse than take a look at this touring stage version of the
phenomenally successful Sunday night TV cop show based on Nicholas
Rhea's Constable series of novels. For eighteen years, after all, the
Yorkshire hamlet of Aidensfield was forever stuck in a 1960s that
barely swung, and where the common people doffed their cap to the
local landowner while being kept in line by a succession of upright
local bobbies. Crime, of course, never paid, especially if it was
committed by a role-call of shifty interlopers from the fleshpots of
the south.
Things appear to be changing in what amounts to a feature-length episode penned by long-serving cast member David Lonsdale, who revives his role of village buffoon David Stockwell. It's 1969, patrician landlord of the Aidensfield Arms, Oscar, is recuperating from an illness in Bridlington, and chirpy Scouse barmaid Gina has hired a jukebox. The Graduate has finally reached the local fleapit, and the neighbourhood cop shop has even had the audacity to put Matt Milburn's PC Joe Malton – a Lancastrian of all things – on the beat. All of which conspires together in a plot which somehow manages to combine David's late night rabbit poaching with the Irish Troubles.
Despite such action-packed longeurs that flit between the pub interior and the grounds of Lord Ashfordly's estate, Keith Myers' production sticks to the TV show's gently nostalgic template that also involves series veteran Steven Blakely's effete PC Geoff Younger. With society clearly collapsing elsewhere, one can only speculate on what horrors the 1970s brought to Aidensfield.
The Herald, June 30th 2016
ends
Comments