Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *
Cast: Susan Cormack, Jane Dickens, Cath Rice, Danielle McLauren, Barbera Willis, Lucy Fiori, Elisa Cowley.
The Unity Theatre has a massive heart. It loves theatre, it loves its audiences and it loves Liverpool. This is evident in the eclectic and challenging work that fills its programme year upon year.
One such work is currently playing at the theatre, Tales from the Blue Room; a play from veteran playwright Pat Anderson and directed by former Liverpool Lunchtime Theatre director Paul Goetzee and which was originally presented as The Swan at the Liverpool Actor’s Studio
Very quickly the audience is introduced to a teacher, a community centre manager, a solicitor who deals with family law, a former nun, a very common working class lady on the sick, a person with social issues and a supermarket shop worker. These unlikely friends meet for a bit of escapism when attending a weekly writing group.
At the heart of the play is Rose, played tentatively by Susan Cormack. Rose is a former teacher who’s dealing with depression and finds it hard to lead the writing class in her local community centre as it is impossible to keep control of the difficult adult students. Each has their own problem and their behaviour is childlike, hilariously the ladies decide to go for a tea and cigarette break in scene two, not long after they have all just met. This work-shyness continues throughout the first act and in another scene the would-be wordsmiths arrive an hour late for class. Poor Rose just can’t cope.
Rose is spurred on by the community centre manager Jean (Jane Dickens), a soapy, yoga loving, ukulele playing, Hippy wannabe and who also has skeletons in her closet.
The women are guarded with their creative efforts at first but they are an open book emotionally. Moria (Danielle McLauren) tells Rose that she wants a baby within five minutes of meeting her and she carries on describing the terrible trouble she is having conceiving. Eventually, after a writer’s block curing trip to the Bronte’s Yorkshire home, the women’s creative juices begin to flow and they take turns to read out their carefully crafted pieces. After each tale the audience is left wondering if the stories are true or fabrications of fiction.
The most interesting of these tales is told with aplomb by Barbara Willis who is wonderful as Winnie, a kind hearted Scottish grandmother with many stories to tell after a very colourful life. Ms. Willis’ performance keeps the play going and her effortless delivery of the text is a joy to watch, as is the twinkle in her eye.
When their community centre is threatened with closure due to a potential purchase by a large supermarket, the women galvanise their friendship and try in vain to save their beloved writing haven, until an enemy is uncovered from within their ranks, something which hits the audience completely out of the blue.
At a time when the subject of women in the theatre is a hot topic, this play could have been a touching tale of female camaraderie. The play is so close to perfection. There are some great moments and laugh out loud one liners. Tales from the Blue Room has a brilliant premise, fantastic characters and the community at the heart of the story. Unfortunately the stakes are not high enough, due to the story telling nature of the piece a lot of the action is retold from past tense and attempts at emotional highs largely fail because there is no build.
Tales from the Blue Room is also packed full of every female cliché imaginable and these can be seen as being presented in predictable order. The audience is given every thought about the menopause, sexy boiler men, domestic violence and the best positions to adopt when conceiving a child and it could be argued that the first act would have fitted into the Vagina Monologues or Grumpy Old Women easily.
During the play the audience learns the reason behind Rose’s depression, what happens when one becomes a mother, that Veronica has motives and of Jean’s skeletons. Claire’s love of pets is also touched upon, that Winnie was a nun and that Ann’s dream is to write a gangster film in the style of Guy Ritchie.
The audience learns all of this but never really get to know the women throughout the play and at the end nothing really changes. Despite upset, the writers group continues and an olive branch is offered to the ‘baddie’ with ‘no hard feelings’. It’s Danielle McLauren’s boisterous Moira who grows the most. From wishing to be a mother, being uncertain during the pregnancy to blossoming into a very happy first time mum, Danielle delivers the play’s most beautiful moment; a simple poem to her newborn.
Tales from the Blue Room accurately portrays the strength of women, their tenacity, their joyfulness, their wisdom and for this is well worth seeing. For sure there will be another production and the play will develop again.
Tony Rome