When We Are Married
Donmar Warehouse, London, until February 7
Seditious chap that he was, JB Priestley loved nothing better than putting up on the stage a proud and prosperous Edwardian family, and, over the next couple of hours, mercilessly exposing their human frailties and failings. He did it with grim intent in An Inspector Calls, when a family realise they have all played their parts in a young woman’s death, but in When We Are Married it’s a lot more tongue-in-cheek.
The premise is that three pious and self-satisfied couples discover on their shared silver wedding anniversary that the man who married them wasn’t qualified to do so, and, accordingly, they have been living in sin, making their children illegitimate. Director Tim Sheader realises it is a play about grotesques and his actors – with a lot of help from Anna Fleischle as costume designer and Suzanne Scotcher doing hair, wigs and make-ups – turn them all into unforgettable spectacles.
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Marc Wootton is on especially good form as a colossal old bore called Albert, and so is Sophie Thompson as his awful purse-lipped wife, Annie. Samantha Spiro as Clara, another spouse , wears a look of magnificent indignation throughout and there are entertaining character turns from the reliably brilliant Ron Cook as a drunken local newspaper photographer and Janice Connolly as a truculent housemaid.
Seldom, if ever, have I remembered a festive season in and around the capital offering so many treats – an hilarious reworking of David Copperfield at the tiny Jermyn Street Theatre, a state-of-the-art Cinderella at the Theatre Royal Windsor in and a glorious HMS Pinafore from the English National Opera – but maybe, just maybe, When We Are Married is the brightest bauble on the tree.
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