Brief Encounter (On Air)
Theatre Royal Windsor until September 21
As a way of getting yourself in the mood for this Sunday’s love-in between Boris Johnson and Laura Kuenssberg, what better than Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter (On Air)?
The conceit of Roy Marsden’s jaunty production is that it imagines the classic romance being performed for radio back in the day with the actors in black tie and the women in dresses and a guy in the background doing all the sound effects.
It sounds preposterous but it’s funny and affecting and rather brilliant. Marsden has a lot of fun as a plain-speaking station master – “hop it,” he tells a belligerent American GI (Martin Carroll) – and the women play a variety of busy-bodies and shop staff with relish and Lin Blakley is hilariously annoying as the insensitive and garrulous Dolly Messiter.
In the principal roles, Jenny Seagrove and Simon Shepherd are on top form and communicate very movingly all the frustrations of a couple that society does not allow ever to express their love for one another. Gary Webster as the dull and trusting husband of Seagrove’s character is a study in genteel impotence.
Enormous fun and only on sadly until September 21 so catch it while you can at the Theatre Royal Windsor.
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