Dangerous Corner (Bury St Edmunds)
Venue: Theatre Royal
Where: Bury St Edmunds
Date Reviewed: 10 March 2011
WOS Rating:
Reader Reviews: View and add to our user reviews
This is the earliest of the three plays in which J B Priestley explored coincidences and time-shifting. The characters are poised between two cataclysmic events – the two world wars – yet in 1932 seem neither affected by the one nor perturbed by what will lead up to the second. They are members of a family-owned popular and prosperous publishing house and, at the start of act one, are entertaining one of their authors.
The dangerous corner which gives the play its title, and round which six of the seven people we meet hurtle in a sequence of ever-increasingly damaging revelations, is fenced on one side by a musical box and on the other by a fitfully-receiving wireless. Colin Blumenau’s production takes the play seriously and allies naturalism to a sort of filmic intensity, so that Emma Chapman’s overall lighting dims from time to time to concentrate its focus on one particular person as he – but more often, she – launches into an accusation or exculpation.
Wearing the gorgeous bias-cut satin evening dresses of the period, Suzanne Ahmet’s Olwen, as intense as the hills and valleys suggested by her Christian name, Ellie Kirk’s preening kitten Betty and Polly Listers scarlet-swathed, marcel-waved Freda dominate the proceedings. Around them circle the men – Nicholas Tizzard as Charles, insecure under his bluster, James Wallace as Robert (Freda’s husband), for whom right so quickly becomes shadowed by a twist of wrongs, and Ben Deery as Gordon, Betty’s tormented husband.
Designer Libby Watson gives us a stylish drawing-room interior around whose formal chairs and settles the actors coalesce in groups and then flow back into individual poses. It’s a bit like fashion illustrations in the Vogue magazines of the play’s period; the artificiality adorns through a subtle distortion of its apparent realism. Te one element which jarred for me was Lynn Whitehead’s Miss Mockridge. Surely a best-selling novelist would have brought evening clothes when staying with well-to-do friends?
Anne Morley-Priestman
http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=207&story=E8831299850753
THEATREWORLD
INTERNET MAGAZINE
The UK’s Premier Internet Theatre Magazine
www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com
‘Dangerous Corner’
A Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Production
Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds until 19 March 2011
If you want a gripping period thriller that will have you on the edge of your seats look no further than the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Production of J B Priestley’s first solo play. It is full of psychological intrigue and you need to be a bit of a Sherlock Holmes to see through the thick fog of deviousness to uncover the truth.
The play was first performed in 1932 and it is set in this period with a group of young beautiful and successful people who have the world at their feet. It was a chance fatal remark by Olwen (Suzanne Ahmet) about a cigarette box which ignited a series of relentless revelations from each member of the party exposing their dangerous secrets.
So with numerous skeletons coming out to air themselves it is left to the hosts of the dinner party Freda (Polly Lister) and Robert Caplin (James Wallace) to get things rolling. Polly encapsulates the wife who knows it all but decides to say nought, whereas Robert means well but cannot see what is right under his nose.
A quite extrovert character is Betty played in a wicked way by Ellie Kirk. With more than a hint from time to time of Queenie from Blackadder her past liaisons come as a complete surprise to everyone – and may include the audience! Her husband Gordon (Ben Deery) seems to come out in more ways than one, which for 1932 was a bold stroke for any stage show. There are also references to pornography and drug addiction we would probably take for granted nowadays, but a mention in jest of possible domestic violence and you could feel the audience wince.
Playing the dark horse character of Stanton was Nicholas Tizzard. You never knew what he was going to come out with next, but he always seemed to one step ahead of the others. Mention of class distinction came in here as he was unlike the others of the privileged class, but had gained knowledge and power the hard way.
As the mood of the thriller became darker and dramatic the lighting very slowly dimmed which accentuated the change in atmosphere. The costumes were elegant and stylish, as you would expect for such a dinner party. However, there were plenty of lighter moments with smatterings of one- liners throughout the play.
This cautionary fable is about the damage caused by telling lies and illustrates in painful terms the human costs involved. The first-rate performances by all the cast allowed you to feel first hand the tension and hurt.
The ending gives you a second chance when it starts all over again, but as you would expect from J B Priestley, there is a twist.
Reviews by Robert Wright for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
BURY ST. EDMUNDS
THEATRE ROYAL
Westgate Street,
Bury St Edmunds.
Suffolk. IP33 1QR
Box Office: 01284 76905 Fax: 01284 706035
Website: www.theatreroyal.org
Theatre reviews by Basil Abbott
Dangerous Corner
Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds
J.B. Priestley was the kingpin of pre-war theatre; and the strength and stay of post-war amateurs, until replaced in their affections by Ayckbourn.
There have been revivals since the National Theatre’s epic An Inspector Calls – rather like adapting a Biggles book in the style of Saving Private Ryan.
Dangerous Corner is partly a time-slip play, a worm-in-the-bud play and a whodunnit, using the tin-types of English murder stories.
It even begins with a shot in the dark; and has characters saying what a fool they have been.
Passions smoulder beneath wing-collared 1930s propriety; and skeletons come crashing out of the cupboard.
We have all known life-changing moments caused by a remark; so there is a serious, truthful side to it within the conventions of murder mystery.
Colin Blumenau’s production is acted and mounted with great style, like an advert for De Resque Minors, and a feeling that the Thirties would end in tears.
It was good to see our very own Mark Finbow credited as Assistant Director.
(Ends 19 March.)
Best known for An Inspector Calls, JB Priestley is a master of peeling away the layers of the lives of outwardly successful, happy people to reveal the canker beneath.
Dangerous Corner is a brilliant example of his skill.
To describe too much would be to ruin an intricate but very accessible plot and to unmask too soon characters who seem too good to be true.
Shock upon shock produces gasps, laughs and stunned silences from audience and characters alike.
Director Colin Blumenau’s production is hard to fault, though I admit to not having seen Dangerous Corner staged before and therefore have no yardstick against which to judge it. If entertainment value is any measure, I was hanging on every word, twist and action, interrogating every cigarette lit, drink poured and facial tick for clues.
It all starts as three wealthy couples gather after dinner for a few drinks in an upmarket part of town. The note-perfect cast are the same actors who last month staged an enjoyable Much Ado About Nothing and they do a good job with what is a beautifully constructed piece by the master of social deconstruction.
The play revolves largely around the excellent James Wallace as Robert Caplan, a publishing boss mourning the death by suicide of his brother Martin a year earlier. He has a superb foil in wife Freda (Polly Lister) and meets his match in Charles Stanton (Nicholas Tizzard) and Gordon Whitehouse (Ben Deery).
The action begins with something as innocent as a chance remark about a musical cigarette case. One by one the layers are removed, leaving just Olwen (Suzanne Ahmet) and frail, innocent Betty (Ellie Kirk) seeming as if they will emerge unscathed.
Themes of truth and lies, love - imagined and real, idealistic and unrequited - greed and the stories people tell themselves to get through another day, make for a play that manages to combine social satire and universal comments on the human condition with a decent whodunnit. The final ten minutes, in particular, are an absolutely horrifying but compelling, irony-drenched pleasure to watch.
Mark Crossley
http://www.eadt.co.uk/entertainment/review_dangerous_corner_bury_st_edmunds_1_829382
Dangerous Corner - Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive". Sir Walter Scott’s famous line could so easily be the subtitle for J.B Priestley’s first play, Dangerous Corner.
First performed in 1932, Priestley takes a carefully constructed look at how one seemingly innocent throw away line can unearth a hornetss nest of lies, deceits and hidden passions. Now revived by the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, it still holds its own and shows - despite being his first work - that Priestley had already mastered the genre.
In their elegant drawing room, Robert and Freda Caplan are entertaining Robert’s business partners and their respective wives along with crime novelist Miss Mockridge.
As a radio play ends and the cigarettes are past round, the musical cigarette box prompts a chance remark from one of the guests. This innocuous utterance spreads and soon we find that, far from being happy, there is a whole world of repressed passion and resentment lurking beneath the surface.
Being a thriller it would be wrong to go into any further detail. Suffice to say that the twists come thick and fast; the obligatory ‘who done it’ moment is served well and the final twist will catch many by surprise.
Director Colin Blumenau has assembled a strong cast - fresh from last month's Much Ado About Nothing - who have created well-rounded portrayals of what turns out to be a group of thoroughly unlikeable people.
Suzanne Ahmet as Olwen, the unsuspecting trigger for the evening’s events, perhaps comes across as the most sympathetic character of the evening. Desperately in love, it’s a performance of subtle intensity. Polly Lister’s hostess Freda is more of a fiery provocateur, happily encouraging the fireworks until they land too close to home, while Ellie Kirk’s Betty may initially seem the innocent party but, beneath her demur exterior, she too hides a darker secret.
The gentlemen behave little better. James Wallace’s Robert is a bully who wont let go until he gets the answer he wants, however uncomfortable. Nicholas Tizzard plays the villain well, with a cold detached air, while Ben Deery’s Gordon is superbly conceived, a tormented soul who deep down knows he has to live a lie to cover his true love. Observing this orgy of self destruction, Lynn Whitehead’s Miss Mockridge must think Christmas has come early with enough source material for her novels to last a lifetime.
The whole production looks ravishing. Libby Watson’s set and costumes give the piece a wonderfully simple but elegant period feel. Emma Chapman’s lighting design does add atmosphere but would benefit in a couple of moments of being more subtle rather than overtly dramatic.
Dangerous Corner may now be nearly 80 years old but the intrigue, drama and human dilemmas portrayed could easily feature in any TV drama today.
It's worth the trip around any corner - dangerous or not - to catch this staging of a classic.
Photo: Polly Lister, Ellie Kirk and Suzanne Ahmet in Dangerous Corner. Photo by Keith Mindham
http://www.glenstheatreblog.com/2011/03/dangerous-corner-theatre-royal-bury-st.html
Venue: Theatre Royal
Where: Bury St Edmunds
Date Reviewed: 10 March 2011
WOS Rating:
Reader Reviews: View and add to our user reviews
This is the earliest of the three plays in which J B Priestley explored coincidences and time-shifting. The characters are poised between two cataclysmic events – the two world wars – yet in 1932 seem neither affected by the one nor perturbed by what will lead up to the second. They are members of a family-owned popular and prosperous publishing house and, at the start of act one, are entertaining one of their authors.
The dangerous corner which gives the play its title, and round which six of the seven people we meet hurtle in a sequence of ever-increasingly damaging revelations, is fenced on one side by a musical box and on the other by a fitfully-receiving wireless. Colin Blumenau’s production takes the play seriously and allies naturalism to a sort of filmic intensity, so that Emma Chapman’s overall lighting dims from time to time to concentrate its focus on one particular person as he – but more often, she – launches into an accusation or exculpation.
Wearing the gorgeous bias-cut satin evening dresses of the period, Suzanne Ahmet’s Olwen, as intense as the hills and valleys suggested by her Christian name, Ellie Kirk’s preening kitten Betty and Polly Listers scarlet-swathed, marcel-waved Freda dominate the proceedings. Around them circle the men – Nicholas Tizzard as Charles, insecure under his bluster, James Wallace as Robert (Freda’s husband), for whom right so quickly becomes shadowed by a twist of wrongs, and Ben Deery as Gordon, Betty’s tormented husband.
Designer Libby Watson gives us a stylish drawing-room interior around whose formal chairs and settles the actors coalesce in groups and then flow back into individual poses. It’s a bit like fashion illustrations in the Vogue magazines of the play’s period; the artificiality adorns through a subtle distortion of its apparent realism. Te one element which jarred for me was Lynn Whitehead’s Miss Mockridge. Surely a best-selling novelist would have brought evening clothes when staying with well-to-do friends?
Anne Morley-Priestman
http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=207&story=E8831299850753
THEATREWORLD
INTERNET MAGAZINE
The UK’s Premier Internet Theatre Magazine
www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com
‘Dangerous Corner’
A Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Production
Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds until 19 March 2011
If you want a gripping period thriller that will have you on the edge of your seats look no further than the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Production of J B Priestley’s first solo play. It is full of psychological intrigue and you need to be a bit of a Sherlock Holmes to see through the thick fog of deviousness to uncover the truth.
The play was first performed in 1932 and it is set in this period with a group of young beautiful and successful people who have the world at their feet. It was a chance fatal remark by Olwen (Suzanne Ahmet) about a cigarette box which ignited a series of relentless revelations from each member of the party exposing their dangerous secrets.
So with numerous skeletons coming out to air themselves it is left to the hosts of the dinner party Freda (Polly Lister) and Robert Caplin (James Wallace) to get things rolling. Polly encapsulates the wife who knows it all but decides to say nought, whereas Robert means well but cannot see what is right under his nose.
A quite extrovert character is Betty played in a wicked way by Ellie Kirk. With more than a hint from time to time of Queenie from Blackadder her past liaisons come as a complete surprise to everyone – and may include the audience! Her husband Gordon (Ben Deery) seems to come out in more ways than one, which for 1932 was a bold stroke for any stage show. There are also references to pornography and drug addiction we would probably take for granted nowadays, but a mention in jest of possible domestic violence and you could feel the audience wince.
Playing the dark horse character of Stanton was Nicholas Tizzard. You never knew what he was going to come out with next, but he always seemed to one step ahead of the others. Mention of class distinction came in here as he was unlike the others of the privileged class, but had gained knowledge and power the hard way.
As the mood of the thriller became darker and dramatic the lighting very slowly dimmed which accentuated the change in atmosphere. The costumes were elegant and stylish, as you would expect for such a dinner party. However, there were plenty of lighter moments with smatterings of one- liners throughout the play.
This cautionary fable is about the damage caused by telling lies and illustrates in painful terms the human costs involved. The first-rate performances by all the cast allowed you to feel first hand the tension and hurt.
The ending gives you a second chance when it starts all over again, but as you would expect from J B Priestley, there is a twist.
Reviews by Robert Wright for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
BURY ST. EDMUNDS
THEATRE ROYAL
Westgate Street,
Bury St Edmunds.
Suffolk. IP33 1QR
Box Office: 01284 76905 Fax: 01284 706035
Website: www.theatreroyal.org
Theatre reviews by Basil Abbott
Dangerous Corner
Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds
J.B. Priestley was the kingpin of pre-war theatre; and the strength and stay of post-war amateurs, until replaced in their affections by Ayckbourn.
There have been revivals since the National Theatre’s epic An Inspector Calls – rather like adapting a Biggles book in the style of Saving Private Ryan.
Dangerous Corner is partly a time-slip play, a worm-in-the-bud play and a whodunnit, using the tin-types of English murder stories.
It even begins with a shot in the dark; and has characters saying what a fool they have been.
Passions smoulder beneath wing-collared 1930s propriety; and skeletons come crashing out of the cupboard.
We have all known life-changing moments caused by a remark; so there is a serious, truthful side to it within the conventions of murder mystery.
Colin Blumenau’s production is acted and mounted with great style, like an advert for De Resque Minors, and a feeling that the Thirties would end in tears.
It was good to see our very own Mark Finbow credited as Assistant Director.
(Ends 19 March.)
Best known for An Inspector Calls, JB Priestley is a master of peeling away the layers of the lives of outwardly successful, happy people to reveal the canker beneath.
Dangerous Corner is a brilliant example of his skill.
To describe too much would be to ruin an intricate but very accessible plot and to unmask too soon characters who seem too good to be true.
Shock upon shock produces gasps, laughs and stunned silences from audience and characters alike.
Director Colin Blumenau’s production is hard to fault, though I admit to not having seen Dangerous Corner staged before and therefore have no yardstick against which to judge it. If entertainment value is any measure, I was hanging on every word, twist and action, interrogating every cigarette lit, drink poured and facial tick for clues.
It all starts as three wealthy couples gather after dinner for a few drinks in an upmarket part of town. The note-perfect cast are the same actors who last month staged an enjoyable Much Ado About Nothing and they do a good job with what is a beautifully constructed piece by the master of social deconstruction.
The play revolves largely around the excellent James Wallace as Robert Caplan, a publishing boss mourning the death by suicide of his brother Martin a year earlier. He has a superb foil in wife Freda (Polly Lister) and meets his match in Charles Stanton (Nicholas Tizzard) and Gordon Whitehouse (Ben Deery).
The action begins with something as innocent as a chance remark about a musical cigarette case. One by one the layers are removed, leaving just Olwen (Suzanne Ahmet) and frail, innocent Betty (Ellie Kirk) seeming as if they will emerge unscathed.
Themes of truth and lies, love - imagined and real, idealistic and unrequited - greed and the stories people tell themselves to get through another day, make for a play that manages to combine social satire and universal comments on the human condition with a decent whodunnit. The final ten minutes, in particular, are an absolutely horrifying but compelling, irony-drenched pleasure to watch.
Mark Crossley
http://www.eadt.co.uk/entertainment/review_dangerous_corner_bury_st_edmunds_1_829382
Dangerous Corner - Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive". Sir Walter Scott’s famous line could so easily be the subtitle for J.B Priestley’s first play, Dangerous Corner.
First performed in 1932, Priestley takes a carefully constructed look at how one seemingly innocent throw away line can unearth a hornetss nest of lies, deceits and hidden passions. Now revived by the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, it still holds its own and shows - despite being his first work - that Priestley had already mastered the genre.
In their elegant drawing room, Robert and Freda Caplan are entertaining Robert’s business partners and their respective wives along with crime novelist Miss Mockridge.
As a radio play ends and the cigarettes are past round, the musical cigarette box prompts a chance remark from one of the guests. This innocuous utterance spreads and soon we find that, far from being happy, there is a whole world of repressed passion and resentment lurking beneath the surface.
Being a thriller it would be wrong to go into any further detail. Suffice to say that the twists come thick and fast; the obligatory ‘who done it’ moment is served well and the final twist will catch many by surprise.
Director Colin Blumenau has assembled a strong cast - fresh from last month's Much Ado About Nothing - who have created well-rounded portrayals of what turns out to be a group of thoroughly unlikeable people.
Suzanne Ahmet as Olwen, the unsuspecting trigger for the evening’s events, perhaps comes across as the most sympathetic character of the evening. Desperately in love, it’s a performance of subtle intensity. Polly Lister’s hostess Freda is more of a fiery provocateur, happily encouraging the fireworks until they land too close to home, while Ellie Kirk’s Betty may initially seem the innocent party but, beneath her demur exterior, she too hides a darker secret.
The gentlemen behave little better. James Wallace’s Robert is a bully who wont let go until he gets the answer he wants, however uncomfortable. Nicholas Tizzard plays the villain well, with a cold detached air, while Ben Deery’s Gordon is superbly conceived, a tormented soul who deep down knows he has to live a lie to cover his true love. Observing this orgy of self destruction, Lynn Whitehead’s Miss Mockridge must think Christmas has come early with enough source material for her novels to last a lifetime.
The whole production looks ravishing. Libby Watson’s set and costumes give the piece a wonderfully simple but elegant period feel. Emma Chapman’s lighting design does add atmosphere but would benefit in a couple of moments of being more subtle rather than overtly dramatic.
Dangerous Corner may now be nearly 80 years old but the intrigue, drama and human dilemmas portrayed could easily feature in any TV drama today.
It's worth the trip around any corner - dangerous or not - to catch this staging of a classic.
Photo: Polly Lister, Ellie Kirk and Suzanne Ahmet in Dangerous Corner. Photo by Keith Mindham
http://www.glenstheatreblog.com/2011/03/dangerous-corner-theatre-royal-bury-st.html