Yvonne Arnaud – until 17th June 2023
Reviewed by Heather Chalkley
3***
This classic regency comedy from J.M. Barrie is brought to life through a play within a play. The Director Laurie Sansom, has cleverly incorporated a modern day setting as the backdrop for the 1805 tale of returning soldiers, love rekindled and a web of unravelling lies.
The play lends its name to the famous Quality Street chocolates, created by the ‘Toffee King’ John Mackintosh in the 1930’s. We find ourselves with a retired group of chocolate makers in the original Halifax factory, come to see the play and reminisce. The words and characters are from actual retired workers, who attended rehearsals in Halifax!
This is a tale of requited love! We meet Phoebe (Paula Lane) and Susan (Louisa-May Parker) Throssel, two sisters fallen on hard times during the Napoleonic wars. They open their home as a day school to make ends meet. Both Parker and Lane leave you under no false illusions as to how miserable this makes their characters! Their pupils come back later as grown up soldiers and ladies, retaining their comical childhood characteristics. The ensembles quick switch between characters, past and present, keeps you smiling and definitely on your toes! Phoebe’s (Lane) love for Captain Valentine Brown (Aron Julius) leads her into a farcical pretence that she is her imaginary niece, Livvy, so she can attend the 3 town balls that welcome the soldiers home. The beautiful ball gowns are the quality street colours we have all grown up with. The flirtatious Livvy (Lane) leads the town a merry dance, stealing all the attention from potential suitors. The glue to stick the story together is often Patty (Gilly Tompkins), maid to the sisters, who is hilariously run ragged keeping the pretence going and offering desperate words of wisdom.
This is a far cry from J.M. Barrie’s well known stories of Peter Pan, however it captures the same magical essence of the regency period. A sweet play to escape in to.