Theatre
Thark
Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Keith Bruce
four stars
NOT being familiar with Ben Travers's 1927 farce – and there are few other places one might see it these days – the coup de theatre that brings Thark to a close still came as a surprise. I cannot say how it previously ended, but the final revision of the text by Clive Francis is certainly dramatic.
It is only the clearest evidence of radical revision in a version originally seen the Park Theatre in London three years ago with Francis in the central role of Sir Hector Benbow, played here by Mark Elstob. As well as reshaping the structure of the play, Francis has taken a knowing and even ironic approach to some of the dialogue, building in nods and winks to dated vocabulary, as well as parachuting in his own gags. The effect is, inevitably, to make the play seem more a pastiche of the time of its setting, but that does little damage to what is a frothy confection in the first place, and makes all of its class-based humour (on which hinges most of the plot) easier to take in a egalitarian age.
All of which would be wasted effort if director Ken Alexander and the ensemble did not make such a superb job of a hugely demanding form, with timing and delivery that looks effortless but is anything but. Alongside Elstrob, John Winchester's Ronny Gamble and George Arvidson's Lionel Frush meet their matches in Lady Benbow (Helen Logan), Kitty Stratton (Tabitha Tingey) and Cherry Buck (Hannah Howie), with Greg Powrie, Anna McGarahan, and Dougal Lee complicating matters from below stairs. Alexander has the whole company precision-drilled.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here