Review: Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests is a tragi-comic tour de force on Stratford stage

Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests is a suite of three separate but interlocking plays, each involving the same six characters set in the same location but at different times over a single weekend. They are some of Ayckbourn’s most famous plays, and deservedly so.

If that sounds a bit too heavy then take heart: The Norman Conquests contain some of the funniest, most tragic, most poignant writing you’ll see on stage. It’s all down to the key ingredients of theatre: the writing, the direction and stage craft, and above all the acting and the characters.

One of the glories of The Norman Conquests is the uncertainty over which character is at the centre. Is it Annie (Lily Skinner), who is little more than a skivvy to her tyrannical mother (whom we never see) and whose planned weekend fling with the eponymous Norman (Roger Ganner) sparks a series of hilarious misunderstandings and revelations? Or is it Sarah (Vicki Jamieson), a frustrated, spinsterly wife driven to neurosis by her marriage to the supremely insensitive but gloriously comic estate agent Reg (Andrew Lear)? Or is it Norman himself, child-like in his demands for attention and affection, so wilfully (sensibly?) deprived of it by his dominant, say-it-like-it-is wife Ruth (Zoe Mortimer)? And what about Tom (Thomas Hodge), the well-meaning but hapless neighbour who is in love with Annie but is too shy to show it and too innocent to see what is going on around him? None of these on their own are quite what the play is about, but each inhabits an equally vital place, much as individual stars make up a constellation.

And what stars they are! The acting here is some of the finest I’ve seen on the Bear Pit – or indeed any other – stage for a long time. The actors don’t just play their characters, they inhabit them. Never once did I get a sense that they were acting – which is saying something given the extravagance of some of the characters’ behaviour. Part of the credit must go to The Bear Pit’s new arrangement in the round, which allows Nicky Cox’s direction to get the best out of the players and to really push their characters to the fore. The lack of stage paraphernalia only adds to their power.

And there’s a lot to get out. Ayckbourn is famously good at peeling away the layers of deception that make up the middle-class façade. Norman is a suburban reincarnation of Dionysius, the Greek god of wine and revelry, whose natural form is chaos but who brings out deep animal urges in women. There are plenty of those in each of these three plays. He might be a reflection of the mighty god, but he can still turn the women on with his mischievous charm and seemingly insatiable libido.

The Bear Pit Theatre has taken on a big challenge in staging the full trilogy, but to my mind it pays off handsomely. You can see any of them on its own and enjoy a good night’s entertainment, but there is more to be gained by seeing all three in succession, as I did. Each contains a belly full of laughter, touched by that essential note of tragedy which makes comedy both the hardest and the most fruitful of all the dramatic arts. It’s a triumph, and reminds us that The Bear Pit is without doubt one of the best little theatre companies around.

* Table Manners is on February 26, and March 3, 7, 10, 13 and 14

Living Together is on February 27 and 28 and March 4, 7, 11 and 14

Round and Round the Garden is on February 29 and March 5, 6, 12 and 14

Visit www.thebearpit.org.uk or call 01789 333935 to book.