My Wonderful Day: Theatre Royal Bath

Tuesday 2nd February 2010

This is a Crackerjack review of My Wonderful Day. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.

Crackerjack rating: 7 / 10.

There's no end to Alan Ayckbourn's theatrical bag of tricks. For his latest play  - he has now written over 70 - he shows the world as seen through the eyes of a nine year- old girl.

Winnie is not well,  so instead of going to school, she goes with her  very pregnant mother, who is a cleaner, to a posh television presenter's home. Winnie has a school essay to write: My Wonderful Day.

And what a day it is. It is Tuesday, so Winnie has to speak French because her mother dreams of going back to the family home in Martinique. The TV star Kevin, a loud , bullying chauvinist, is raging because is wife has gone missing, and is consoling himself with a wispy little girlfriend Tiffany. His drunken friend Josh  also turns up.

Then Winnie's mum goes into premature labour  and is taken off to hospital, and Wnnie is left in the charge of all these strangers  who are under the impression hat she doesn't speak English.

Kevin ignores her, Tiffany  confides in her and Josh treats her like a three year-old, and entertains her with magic tricks in pigeon French. The only adult who understands her is the estranged and bad-tempered wife, Paula

And throughout it all Winnie watches and writes it all down for her essay. She hardly talks at all, except in French, and as she observes these adults as if in a human zoo, you begin to see them from her point of view. She is mystified, but endlessly patient with all the screaming and selfishness of the grown-ups who should be protecting her.

As with all Ayckbourn, the farcical situation is beautifully exploited down to the last drop and perhaps a little too far, and the pauses and non-sequiturs remind you of Pinter, only with laughs. His acting team as always is outstanding, and the star is the one who has the fewest lines, Ayesha Antoine, a grown-up actress who gives an astonishingly realistic portrait of a nine year -old.

And also familiar is the slightly dark streak to the play: the adults are lonely ,angry and lost ,and only Winnie and her mum have a  truly loving relationship, echoing the experience of Ayckbourn himself, who was brought up by a single mum, and spent his formative years watching the grown-ups have a wonderful day.

Helen Reid

This is a Crackerjack review of My Wonderful Day. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.