After teaming up last month to buy and disperse land that would lay under the proposed third Heathrow runway, Greenpeace leaders expressed surprise at being in cahoots with the Conservatives; but a look back at the last few decades shows that it’s not the first time greenies and Tories have held hands tight enough to stop the circulation of transport around rural areas. The issue itself has persistently popped up over the last century with the advancement of planes, trains and automobiles, and it’s the latter that’s the subject of quirky-Conservative playwright William Douglas Home’s 1972 hit play.
It’s the early sixties, and Lady Boothroyd (Helen Ryan) has promised to off herself if the proposed plan to build a motorway outside her historical-landmark rural estate on the border of Oxfordshire goes ahead. Her husband, Sir General William Boothroyd (Edward Fox), seems indifferent to the potential spouse-suicide, preferring to idle away his hours with rambling, Grandpa Simpson-style storytelling, while their MP son Hubert (Andrew Wincott) is unable use his political sway to prevent the motorway.
The Cherry Orchard is the predominant influence here, the play almost as much of a transposition of Chekhov’s classic satire as John Byrne’s 2004 Uncle Varick was of another Chekov classic, Uncle Vanya. Like Chekhov, Home is able to condemn the apathy of the aristocracy whilst retaining our sympathy for the characters, and it’s a tone director Richard Digby Day balances perfectly, as well as the pacing, which moves swiftly, yet somehow retains the feeling of idleness pervading the drama. Likewise, Fox and Ryan, turning in immersed, rounded performances in potentially stereotypical roles, are able to provoke laughter and pity at the drop of a hat; so it’s disappointing that the supporting cast isn’t quite up to par, not least Charity Reindorp, who posits woodenness for wide-eyed naiveté as granddaughter Sally Boothroyd. Designer Paul Farnsworth’s lush set is evocative, drenched in autumnal shades that are symbolic of the fall of nature taking place outside their windows. And, of course, our own; some might balk at the staging of a play where issues of conservation are addressed for their value to history and beauty; but Home is attacking the exact kind of apathy that’s making us blind to imminent ecological threats, and isn’t our appreciation of the beauty of nature a basic phase of self-preservation.
The King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 21 Feb, then touring,
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