Relatively Speaking

Farce Masterclass

Relatively Speaking

by Alan Ayckbourn

Questors Productions at the Questors Studio, Ealing, until 17^th May

Review by Andrew Lawston

Few shows can pack out a theatre on a warm May evening like the opening night of an Alan Ayckbourn play, and this Questors production of Relatively Speaking in the Studio is no exception.

Waking up to a silent phone call one Sunday morning, Greg becomes confused and frustrated by his girlfriend Ginny’s behaviour, as well as by the bouquets of flowers and boxes of chocolates that fill her small flat, not to mention the pair of size 12 slippers he finds under her bed.

Adam Keenan wins the audience over with his good-hearted but put-upon Greg, and he has great chemistry with Emily Sanctuary’s elfin and enigmatic Ginny. The couple spend the whole first act getting ready to leave the flat, alternately arguing, making up, and drinking tea. Together, Keenan and Sanctuary captivate the audience for a solid forty minutes of the most banal conversation and everyday activity, through solid, believable performances, and impeccable comic timing.

The first of two intervals sees a dramatic change to Juliette Demoulin’s set when we return to the auditorium, with the furnished bedsit transformed into the patio of an English country garden. Ginny has told Greg she’s visiting her parents, and Greg has decided to join her, to ask their blessing for the two of them to get married.

The problem is that Ginny has not been entirely honest, and that Helen Walker’s charming Sheila, and Robert Seatter’s conniving Philip, are not actually her parents. Mistaken identities and misunderstandings pile up, exacerbated by old-fashioned English hospitality and good manners.

After a briefer interval to prepare the patio set for the third act, matters eventually reach a crisis point, which is headed off with an ending that is not exactly happy in all respects, but which is highly satisfactory, and again very funny.

Relatively Speaking has been a consistent hit for very nearly sixty years, and this production continues the run of form with a cast who play the finely-tuned dialogue perfectly and without embellishment. The whole play is, simply, very funny indeed, with the audience laughing almost constantly throughout the second act in particular.

Director Anne Neville is faithful to the play’s original mid-1960s setting, through the music, Jenny Richardson’s wonderfully evocative costumes (Greg’s tie deserves special mention for its unique awfulness), and Harriet Parsonage’s props, including a gaudy tea set that I recognise from my grandmother’s old house. There’s even a Yellow Submarine poster hanging on one wall, which is slightly too late for 1967 but never mind.

Keeping the play in its original setting is a wise choice, as beyond details like four digit telephone numbers and old shillings, elements such as a middle-aged businessman chasing his secretary, and Greg and Ginny’s preoccupation with marriage would start to look more than a little out of place in a more contemporary setting. Which is not to say that the play’s sensibilities are in any way out of touch; Philip’s blustering “there are two sides” speech about women in the office is rightly dismissed as nonsense by Sheila. And while Sheila spends much of the play as a downtrodden housewife making every effort to placate her domineering husband, she is significantly sharper than she appears, and ends the play as the only character who fully understands everything that has transpired.

This is a confident and hilarious production of an enduring play, and hopefully every audience will be as numerous and wholehearted in their appreciation as they were on opening night.

Andrew Lawston, May 2025

Photography by Paula Robinson