Fallen Angels at the Milton Keynes Theatre Review

Fallen Angels
Milton Keynes Theatre

18-22 March 2014

www.atgtickets.com/miltonkeynes

Reviewed by Louise Platt

I was asked to write a review of Noël Coward’s play Fallen Angels at Milton Keynes Theatre.

I go to this theatre on a fairly regular basis and always enjoy the experience. The staff are very polite and happy to help. Parking in the evening is very easy and free of charge in the evening and the theatre is very well sign-posted and easy to find.

There is a choice of bars and kiosks where you can purchase drinks beforehand and during the interval (worth ordering your interval drinks in advance to beat the queues) and the toilets are also very clean and there are lots of them (although you will need to queue for the ladies as you do pretty much everywhere in this country!)

So onto the play.  It is set in the 1920’s, is a comedy and is based around the lives of two well to do housewives, their longstanding friendship, their relationship with their husbands and a past love affair, which they both shared with the same French lothario Maurice Duclos.

Every scene (there are four) is set in Julia’s (played by Jenny Seagrove) very elegant apartment in London, which she shares with her husband (Fred) and their maid Saunders. After a conversation (initiated by Julia) about how their marriage lacks passion and excitement, Fred heads off for a weekend’s golf. Enter Julia’s best friend Jane (played by Sara Crowe) who is smoldering having just received a postcard from an ex-lover Maurice whom she has not seen for fourteen years. It transpires that not only is Maurice coming to London for a visit, which is the reason for Jane’s hysteria, but that Julia has also shared a romantic liaison in the past with this same man. The two friends start to reminisce (lots of hot flushes abound) and then ready themselves for his imminent arrival, dressing in lavish black evening gowns and preparing an elegant and seductive dinner party.

As Maurice fails to appear the women gradually drink more and more champagne, moving onto cocktails and liqueurs and inevitably become more and more inebriated. It is hilarious to watch. The two lead actresses who have great chemistry on stage play “sloshed” very well and throw themselves around falling off and over furniture, scrambling to answer the telephone (it is disappointingly never Maurice on the other end) and generally making a bit of a show of themselves. Audience members in front row should beware of flying profiteroles! Eventually the friends fall out and Jane storms out with a pineapple in her evening bag and only one shoe looking the worse for wear.

The following morning the husbands of the two friends return early from their golfing trip having fallen out themselves and each wife in turn tells her friend’s husband that his wife has run off with this Casanova Maurice (not true on either account). We do finally meet Maurice who is suave and debonair as expected but I won’t spoil the ending for you!

This is a very enjoyable play and all seven cast members are outstanding. There is slapstick comedy in there and lots of funny one- liners. There is also poignancy as the characters discuss their lives, their loves and their friendship.

This production is relatively short. It started at 7.30pm and finished at around 9.30pm with an interval. I really enjoyed it and was drawn into the story and the characters from start to finish. It is not a play that I would normally choose to go and see but having now seen it I would recommend it for a light hearted evening out at the theatre.

Rating: 4.5/5

Tickets cost from £16.90 to £37.90 (plus £2.85 transaction fee).

For more information or to book tickets call the Box Office on 0844 871 7652 or click here.

Milton Keynes Theatre, 500 Marlborough Gate, Central Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK9 3NZ