Enchanted April at the Talisman is enchanting!
- Ashley Hayward
- Apr 15
- 3 min read
Enchanted April by Matthew Barber at The Talisman Theatre and Arts Centre, Kenilworth, from 14 – 19 April. Director Maurice Smith.
Review by Ashley Hayward.
The Talisman certainly picked an appropriate time of the year to stage this delightfully uplifting, comic and romantic tale centred on four disillusioned English women and set in the early 1920s.
Firstly we meet Lotty Wilton, nicely portrayed by Paige Phelps. She is effervescent, eternally optimistic, impulsive and highly likeable. Her domineering husband is a frugal solicitor who controls the purse strings very tightly.
She chats to a fellow member at a Ladies Club, Rose Arnott, played by Eleanor Lake. She is a devout Christian and, like Lotty, she too is in an unfulfilling relationship and strongly disapproves of her husband’s decadent lifestyle and his occupation as the writer of erotic novels.
The ladies see an advert to rent a small Italian castle ‘for those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine’. They are very tempted but as it would appear to be outside their price range, they advertise for two other more affluent ladies to join them.
Mrs Graves steps forward with Chris Carpenter playing the part of an elderly widow who can be rather prickly and has become very set in her ways.
The final member of the quartet is Caroline Bramble with Gillian Halford playing the beautiful, wealthy but dissolute and heavy drinking Lady who is fed up of always being the centre of attraction and claims to seek some peace and solitude.
When we get to meet the two husbands it was very easy to understand why the wives wanted to get away from them!
Unusually for a story written in the 1920s the males are very much the support cast but the three male actors all give convincing and believable performances with Ben Ionoff and Phil Spencer playing the husbands and James McCabe doing the honours as the landlord of the castle.
The play is enhanced by very colourful, authentic costumes, clever effects and slick and subtle scene changes. The sets are simple but highly effective as the Act One action takes place in nine different settings. Act 2 is set entirely on the very impressive terrace at sunny San Salvatore and it is here that we find out more about the women and they discover more about themselves.
It was really good to watch the relationships develop as they initially clash and eventually start to bond.
There was also an entertainingly comic performance from Teresa Robertson as the lovable but mischievous Italian housekeeper, Costanza.
The actors certainly succeed in bringing the script to life. It could easily have descended into farce as things became complicated with the men’s arrival in Act 2 but they handle it extremely well under Maurice Smith’s excellent direction.
There are several twists and surprises during the second Act but, without giving any of them away, it was really nice to see a play where you could say there was not one but four happy endings!
Tickets are available by coontacting the Box Office at 01926 856548, or visit: https://talismantheatre.co.uk/whats-on/enchanted-april/#tickets
Comments