Theatre: Quality Street........

Phoebe Throssel lives on Quality Street, the bustling hub of a quaint northern town where she runs a school for unruly children.
Ten years since a tearful goodbye, an old flame returns from fighting Napoleon. But the look of disappointment on Captain Valentine’s face when he greets a more mature, less glamorous Phoebe, spurs our determined heroine to action. She becomes the wild and sparkling Miss Livvy, a younger alter-ego who soon entraps the clueless Captain.

As their romance is rekindled, can she juggle both personas? Or will her deception scandalise the town and wreck any future with the man she loves? J.M. Barrie’s delicious farce, written years before his now much-loved Peter Pan, was so well known in its day that it gave its name to the UK’s most popular chocolates, made in Halifax since 1936.

In Laurie Sansom’s directorial debut for Northern Broadsides, this rare revival also features a commentary from the Quality Street™ factory workers, whose own stories of hapless romance and growing old disgracefully give the show a playful Yorkshire twist.

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Well it's quite difficult to know what to say about this. This is a good story with a clever amusing script but I would never have described it as farce as it was far too slow and wordy. Daughter said "That ball seemed to go on forever". 

The introduction of the factory workers was confusing. Audience that were caught up in the play wasn't funny just annoying. And their having to keep explaining what was obviously going on was totally patronising. 

Mixing the old and new also spilled onto the set design with period furniture covered in crochet and walls of industrial metal poles. To make the connection between the Quality Street drama and the chocolates for the second half they decorated the metal poles with huge shiny flower shapes and dressed all those at the ball in shiny sweet wrappers. 

I also dislike the constant use of the dry smoke and as we were in the pit in row B our heads were level with the stage and breathing it in. 

And the final line by one of the factory workers was "So now you know why the chocolates were called Quality Street", and really they hadn't said why at all. 

Remember when the tin was this big? 

Oh dear that makes the whole thing sound a dreadful evening, but it wasn't. Overall it was a pleasant evening at the theatre and gave the three of us plenty to talk about all the way home.

On another plus note, we sat in the pit of the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds and it's a beautiful old Regency theatre with the circle and upper circle as all individual boxes.

And that was over a week ago and the last out-of-the-house social event I'll go to until we get the coronavirus all clear. Stay safe everyone!
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