The Anniversary

Keep Mum

The Anniversary

by Bill MacIlwraith

The Questors at the Questors Studio, Ealing until 25^th January

Review by Polly Davies

Questor’s revival of Bill MacIlwraith’s The Anniversary made for an entertaining evening.  The play, first produced in the mid 1960’s, is a no-holds barred examination of a matriarchal household slowly imploding.  Doesn’t sound a barrel of laughs, but the witty script and the interplay between generations meant there were plenty of laughs all evening. 

I never cease to be amazed at the transformation of the small Studio stage, now perfectly setting this play into its mid-century period.  Mobolaji Babalola’s leather sofas, bakelite telephone and drinks cabinet, with a suitably irritating tune that plays every time it is opened, is a perfect backdrop to this wealthy but working class family drama.  And Jenny Richardson’s costumes reinforce the period setting perfectly.  Tom’s lairy suit, Karen’s headband and Shirley’s tights put them firmly in the 1960’s.

It’s the wedding anniversary of Mum and now deceased Dad, who looks down benevolently at the proceedings from his portrait above the piano.  The family own a building company, which under Mum’s stewardship has become increasingly demanding on her sons.   Each year Mum (Despina Sellar) requires her three sons to join her to celebrate the anniversary, and takes the opportunity to reconfirm her manipulative power over her children and their futures.   The humour comes from the sons’ attempts to fightback, and from the relationships between them, their two partners and their mother.  There is a little farcical interplay about their cowboy building practices, as the emotionally intense confrontations are frequently interrupted by a complaint from a customer about various versions of bad practice.  And Henry’s quiet transvestitism, played so sympathetically by Craig Nightingale, is a beautifully humorous antidote to his hard edged mother. 

Skilful performances by Sherralyn and Caitlyn Vary as Karen and Shirley perfectly demonstrated the fact that the two married sons, anxious to get away from their abusive mother, had both found tough determined women as partners, well able to give as good as they got.  Ed Clements’ Tom was convincing as both the wannabe rebel, and the vulnerable child desperate to win this endless battle with his mother.  And Mike Hadjipateras managed to convey the endlessly put-upon Terry’s frustration at his inability to cope with the constant emotional abuse doled out by his mother.   It is Despinna Sellar’s role as Mum that is pivotal to the plot.  She must be one of the nastiest, least sympathetic character in modern literature.  Even when she is softly caring it is only as part of a manipulative play to draw a character into another power-play situation.  She is happy to play one son against the other, shift her favouritism to each in turn, whichever suits her purpose. 

The play when written was part of the experimental breakthrough that saw writers like Joe Orton explore working class life, aiming to shock theatregoers from their complacency.  And I suspect that the original direction was more mannered and staccato than Russell Fleet’s more flowing pace.  Working class families in a traditionally middle class family drama no longer shocks, neither does Henry’s sad washing-line lingerie theft, but the witty dialogue and the enduring intergenerational drama mean that the play retains its interest into the 21st century.

Polly Davies, January 2025

Photography by Jane Arnold-Forster