REVIEW - Western Daily Press Wednesday May 10th 1967 - A COMEDY OF AILMENTS

​

Knightstone Theatre, Weston-super-Mare: Weston Dramatic Society in The Imaginary Invalid, by Moliere.

​

This is a first-class presentation of a gem from a collection of comedies by a master of the art.

The players captured the sheer fun of Miles Malleson's adaptation and succeeded in sharing it liberally with last night's somewhat undemonstrative but nevertheless appreciative audience.

Monsieur Argan is a rich hypochondriac, and David Hemming brought to the role a gleeful enjoyment of his iaginary complaints.

As the prying and talkative Toinette, Joan Townsend succeeded in bringing even the more mundance passages of her dialogue to expressive life.

        Warmth

Lesley Fear captured the demureness and at the same time a touching warmth as Angelica, in love with Cleante, played with foppish grandeur by Tony Hayman.

Angelica's stepmother was poised, precise and calculating as portrayed by Nina Rees, while Ray Edbrooke was majestically hypocritical as the legal conniver Monsieur Bonnefoy.

Producer Neville Redman resisted the temptation to allow any of the characters to deteriorate into mere caricature.

                                                                                                                                                                      ERIC HOPKINSON

​

REVIEW - Weston Mercury and Somersetshire Herald Friday May 12th 1967 - REFRESHING CHOICE BY DRAMATIC SOCIETY

​

AMBITIOUS PRODUCTION OF MOLIERE PLAY

 

With Moliere's play, La Malade Imaginaire, Weston-super-Mare Dramatic Society is certainly breaking new ground and trying material refreshingly different from the amateurs' usual choice. The result, at Knightstone Theatre this week, has much to commend it, but does point out the traps which highly stylised plays lay for the inexperienced.

Moliere's plays are classics, almost as old as Shakespeare's and with as much tradition about them as a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. The players have to move, speak and act within the convention of the play's period - the 17th century - and they have to give the production a highly polished and unfaltering sense of pace and timing in order to give with to the lines and keep the comedy bubbling. For Moliere has been described as "the father of modern high comedy," and genius needs some libing up to.

        Puzzling

Having accepted the challenge, it is a little puzzling that the Society has not really tried to re-create the play's atmosphere. The wigs are 100 years before their time, and the style is more like a gentle Victorian comedy than the social satire it proved before the court of Louis XIV.

But, as in any play, the words are the thing and the Dramatic Society speak clearly and make their points. They have managed to achieve the difficult feat of balancing on the knife-edge of credibility. They do not topple over into caricature, but they do sometimes lean towards 20th century understatement and informality.

The opening performance ran too long and badly needed speeding up, especially in the third act, but no doubt this fault had been remedied.

        Comment

Moliere was more than a writer of comedies; he also set out to reflect life and comment upon its essence. This calls for that rapport with the audience, and David Hemming achieves it pretty well in the considerable role of Argan, the invalid with so many imaginary illnesses.

He looks right and suggests well the panic and insecurity of the old booby who is so easily duped, and he is at his best when he uses his eyes in an otherwise rather static role.

Joan Townsend is a delightful Toinette, a scheming minx who is completely without respect for her betters but always ready for a joke. She is lively and very entertaining. Lesley Fear gives the right hint of sparkle as  the equally scheming elder daughter, Angelica, and Elizabeth Kay also runs rings round her father as the saucy Louise.

Nina Rees. playing the stepmother, brings out well the two-faced nature of this money-seeking woman who is only after Argan's legacy.

        Amusing

Michael Usher gives an amusing interpretation of the blustering Doctor Diaforus, and Robert Cornish is the half-witted son whom Argan hopes for a son-in-law. Tony Hayman plays Cleante, Angelica's secret lover and their love scene and duet is charmingly accomplished.

As always in the plays of this period, there are a number of other colourful characters and it is up to the wit of director and actor to make them as apt, topical and pointed as they can. Ray Edbrooke speaks very well as the solemn lawyer and gives a strong performance. Leighton Norman, too, never drops out of character as the frightening apothecary with his immense clyster pipe! Richard Hess appears briefly as Dr. Purgon.

Selwyn Phillips has the congenial task of blowing fresh air through a household reeking with stuffiness and ridiculous notions. He is Moliere's mouthpiece and he draws a portrait of Argan's down-to-earth brother very effectively.

The music, especially composed by Richard Graves, is an attractive feature of Neville Redman's production, and Monica Turnock is a capable flautist during the initiation ceremony which ends Act Three.

There are performances tonight and tomorrow, when there is also a matinee.                                                                  R.M.D.