Tons of Money by Will Evans and Valentine adapted by Alan Ayckbourn and directed by Joe Harmston, at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth
A farce which first opened in 1922 and which finds its theme in the antics and machinations of the upper classes on their uppers might have some contemporary nuances, but the audience is left to bring these along with them if they will. In 1922 it was necessary to look rich and hold some position in society to get credit but, as is well known, in the last decade almost anyone could get it. Any room left to bring edginess to this play has not been taken up. It is farce for fun and entertainment. It is for feeling good and forgetting the credit crunch in the world outside of the theatre.
In the hands of these skilled actors, the play succeeds in reaching a level of quality which from lesser performers might just about amuse an undemanding audience. Caroline Langrishe as Louise plays a central role as she constructs tangled plots involving the staged ‘deaths’ of her husband Aubrey (Mark Curry) to secure an inheritance to sort out the dire state of the family’s finances. Necessarily for a farce, these plots go wildly wrong.
Alan Ayckbourn chose to adapt this play first in 1985 and then at the National Theatre, London during his two year sabbatical there. In his notes for the London production he claims to have made small changes updating verbal gags and risqué jokes. Whether they were original lines or Ayckbourn’s updates, some of the puns reduced the audience to groans. Other lines and actions did build up waves of laughter but nothing occurred to put any of us in danger of continuous hilarity or an aching in our sides.
Janet Henfrey is well cast as Miss Mullet, the resident aunt whose denial of deafness and constant search for her knitting disguises an astute judge of character as the imposters tumble into the plot. She does this with consummate ability. Keith Clifford as Giles the aged gardener, who deposits garden produce directly to the confounded Louise and Aubrey rather than taking it to the kitchen for his enemy the cook, convinces with his stumbling gait and constant sneezing onto the produce. Lysette Anthony slips into role as a ‘20s flapper swooning into the arms of any of those who approximate her lost husband.
In 1922 the critics agreed this was the best farce they had seen for a long time. The public agreed and there were 733 performances. A star publicist, W Buchanan Taylor, convinced the dramatic critic of the Daily Mail that this was The British Farce” Miss Nora Heald fell for his line and the Mail ran stories on the play for a week. Buchanan Taylor followed this up by dropping wallets (apparently) bulging with pound notes in the vicinity of the theatre until he was banned from doing so. He followed this by giving out theatre tokens based on the fondly remembered gold sovereign. The show made its producers £100,000.
I cannot help wondering if this profit had some motivating influence on the producers of this current production. There is more than a little irony that Tons of Money made tons of money in 1922.
If you would like an evening of escapism and if you desire farce then these actors will deliver it to you. But there must be better plays to stage. Surely theatre, even if it is in the form of farce, should deliver a slight sting as well as a titter.
Tons of Money is touring to Edinburgh and Guildford on the following dates:
02 Feb – 07 Feb King’s Theatre, Edinburgh
09 Feb – 14 Feb Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford
