Fallen Angels New Victoria Theatre Woking Review
Fallen Angels
New Victoria Theatre, Woking
24-29 March 2014
Reviewed by Christine Charlesworth
On Monday 24 March I went to see Fallen Angels at the New Victoria Theatre Woking. This theatre, set in the centre of Woking, is modern and the seating is extremely comfortable, both in the theatre itself and in the various bars and lounges set on three levels off the large spiral staircase. There is a large selection of restaurants nearby, either in the newly modernised Jubilee Square or in the Peacock Centre beside the entrance to the Theatre complex. Parking is in the Peacock Centre or a short walk away in the Victoria Car Park.
Written by Noel Coward the first performance of ‘Fallen Angels’ was held at the Globe Theatre, London on 21 April 1925. This latest production has a very middle-class twenties feel about it, both with the way the language is spoken and with the set design; all cream and white elegance, with high ceilings, a crystal chandelier, tall doors, large portraits, a white baby grand and a wonderful feeling of space.
Julia Sterrall (Jenny Seagrove) is an elegant, bored, chain-smoking housewife who has come to terms with the fact that she is in a happy, though loveless, marriage. Her friend, Jane Banbury (Sara Crowe) is in a similar situation and the friends spend much time together while their husbands go away for weekends of golf. However, both women, fifteen years earlier, had a romantic affair (at different times) with Maurice, a French Casanova.
Once her husband, Fred (Tim Wallers) has left with Willy Banbury (Robin Sebastian) for their weekend of golf Julia is alone to drift elegantly around the flat, tinkle on the piano, do some balletic stretches and look forward to a normal day of boredom. By contrast, the new housekeeper ‘Saunders’ (Gillian McCafferty) is a mine of information about everything, with a habit of butting into conversations and correcting facts, including showing Julia the correct way to play a piece on the piano.
Then the pace of the play alters.
Enter Jane Banbury, all of a fluster, with the news that Maurice is arriving in London that weekend.
After much swooning over the past, heated arguments, hysterics and jealous outbursts the two decide to organise an elegant dinner of champagne and oysters, dress for the occasion and wait for the arrival of Maurice. Who fails to appear. Once the champagne cork has popped, the choreography is wonderfully funny as we watch the pair getting steadily more and more drunk. Food is batted with plates, they slip round the floor and over the furniture, get tangled in telephone wires and Sara Crowe’s timing with her handbag strap and also with the skirt of her dress, brought tears of laughter from the audience.
In the final act Saunders mixes a really magical hangover cure and, after the husbands return, we do meet Maurice (Philip Battley) who makes quite an entrance.
Although a little dated, this play is full of light-hearted fun, great casting and wonderful timing.
Rating: 4/5
Tickets cost from £16.90 to £37.90 (plus £2.85 transaction fee).
For more information or to book tickets click here.
New Victoria Theatre, The Ambassadors, Peacocks Centre, Woking, Surrey, GU21 6GQ | 0844 8717645
