REVIEW: Conflict and rivalries boil up as village pageant becomes a battleground

Ten Times Table by Alan Ayckbourn

Performed at The Bear Pit Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, Wednesday 26 February 2025 [until Saturday 01 March]. 

Director Nic Walsh

Conflict and rivalries boil up as village pageant becomes a battleground.

The village of Pendon is going to organise a folk festival but a little known historical injustice, the Massacre of the Pendon 12, seems ideal as a theme for an opening pageant.  Ray [Adam Schumacher], the chair of the organising committee, thinks he has struck gold but it is more like a hornets’ nest.

Adam perfectly captured the character of Ray as the little man who could finally be centre stage.  Ray was a key figure in almost every scene, and Adam had a lot of dialogue and was word perfect and maintained his Northern accent throughout.  Adam conveyed frustration as he tried to conciliate different factions on the organising committee, not least his wife Helen [Tracy Humphreys].  This was one of Tracy’s best performances at the Bear Pit as she was impatient, intolerant and carping.

Barry Purchase-Rathbone as Councillor Evans was the pedant found on every committee.  He amused the audience, but not Ray, as he punctiliously pointed out spelling and grammatical mistakes in the minutes.  Steve Farr’s portrayal of Eric as the right-on, self-righteous, self-important, card-carrying Marxist, for whom everything epitomised the class struggle, was very authentic.  Sophie [Georgina Monk] was smitten by Eric’s zeal.  Her infatuation with him blinded her to the reality of him already having a partner.  Sophie was distraught when for all his idealism he dumped her and returned to his partner. 

Lawrence [Malcolm Castle] was a businessman on the committee whose business and marriage were failing, and who found solace in alcohol.  Playing a drunkard convincingly takes skill not to overdo it and Malcolm gave an excellent portrayal of one in the depths of despair.  Tom Purchase-Rathbone gave an tremendous performance as no-nonsense Captain Barton, who used his Sandhurst training to organise strategy in the pageant’s dramatic reenactment which was clearly getting out of Ray’s control.

Opening night nerves meant the prompt was in action several times causing the flow of the play to falter at times.  That notwithstanding, director Nic Walsh steered the cast through this Alan Ayckbourn play to give the audience a humorous look at trying to organise almost anything by committee.

Tickets from www.thebearpit.org.uk