Absurd Person Singular

The King’s Theatre this week sees a revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1972 dark comedy “Absurd Person Singular”. The play is in three acts, set in three different kitchens on three successive Christmas Eves, as we witness what takes place as the same group of characters prepare for or take refuge from the party action in the next room.
By far the wittiest, most amusing act is Act 2, where Honeysuckle Weeks ( the driver from “Foyle’s War”) plays the most eloquent of parts without uttering a single word. She is Eva, chronically depressed wife of the flash, philandering architect Geoffrey, and she tries in vain throughout the whole act to commit suicide. She puts her head in the oven - in bustles Jane to offer to help her clean it: she rushes towards a sharp knife and is intercepted by her husband: she tries to hang herself but the light fitting breaks: she tries to drink poison but it is dashed from her hands and a glass of gin offered instead. No wonder she ends up lying on the table singing Christmas carols. The feckless Geoffrey (Marc Bannerman) is also splendid in his part, strutting his egotistical stuff in eye-catching ‘70s outfits - a toggled sheepskin coat, a velvet jacket, wide pointed collar on his open shirt.
The three different kitchens also have a starring role. Jane the obsessive housewife (Sara Crowe) has a very smooth fitted kitchen with- gasp!- an automatic washing machine plumbed in! Eva’s kitchen of wooden units is a mess- the sink piled high with dishes, the cooker piled high with grease, the floor littered with unsuccessful attempts to write a suicide note. Marion the banker’s wife (Deborah Grant) has a freezing kitchen of genteel poverty, with an aged Rayburn stove and boiler they no longer can afford to run very often ( were bankers an endangered species also in the ‘70s?)
In many ways this play was a forerunner of the 1977 Abigail’s Party, and for that reason, because this particular strand of comedy of manners has been seen so often, it can seem a little obvious and wooden at times. But the fact that the play has lasted and is so often revived is due to the fine balance of darkness and comedy - a fine balance that director Alan Strachan has succeeded in achieving.

King’s Theatre Edinburgh until Saturday 11th October