Whose “bright” idea was it to book a play about family funerals, eulogies and stuff for the day after Pauline’s funeral?
OK, so it was my idea. But I had the idea to book this back in early March, not even three weeks after I came out of hospital with Pinky. Janie and I love the Hampstead Downstairs – I spotted that this play was only an hour long and that the production had Rosie Cavaliero playing the lead.
Back in the day, Rosie stormed NewsRevue with her performances, not least a cracking, seminal job with one of mine, Domestic Fuel, which became a NewsRevue classic…
…so I was keen to see her perform again after all these years. I booked the very last night of the run to give my hip sufficient time to repair ahead of a “cheek-to-cheek” hour on those Hampstead Downstairs pews.
While my mother-in-law Pauline’s demise this spring was not entirely a surprise, I could not have known in early March that she would die some six week’s later and that the funeral would be the day before we saw the play.
The timing could have been worse. Given the central conceits of the play revolving around funerals, eulogies and things going badly wrong for a family before during and after…I guess seeing this play the day BEFORE delivering Pauline’s eulogy might have terrified me. Whereas, seeing the play the day after simply reinforced my view that I had needed to write with care and deliver the eulogy with dignity:
Anyway, returning to Personal Values.
Here is a link to the Hampstead resources for this play/production.
All three members of the cast – Rosie Cavaliero was joined by Holly Atkins and Archie Christoph-Allen – performed admirably, directed well by Lucy Morrison. The set made excellent use of the limited space downstairs, creating a sense of the claustrophobic atmosphere in a home that has become a hoarding nightmare – we have Naomi Dawson to thank for that.
It is an excellent short play. The notion of someone getting emotionally stuck in their past reminded me a little of Kevin Elyot’s excellent plays My Night With Reg and The Day I Stood Still:
Except in Personal Values, the “stood still” syndrome manifests itself in an extreme hoarding disorder and the “syndrome” is family-originated rather than through romance and otherness.
We were left in no doubt as to the growing up era upon which the sisters were reflecting. Rosie’s one chance in the play to show off her ability to deliver a belter of a song was a pivotal scene, excellently done, when the sisters started singing and dancing to Temptation by the Human League:
It was preceded by some business, which amused me a lot, around a Casio keyboard which the Rosie character had put up for sale on E-Bay at the behest of her sister and then bought back from herself, because she couldn’t bear to part with it. When she demonstrated the instrument it had the Nightbirds (Shakatak) riff programmed into it:
So very early 1980s, both of those tracks. Mercifully, although I am prone to mentally and digitally hoarding this stuff, I am not tempted to rush out and secure those tracks on vinyl…or am I?
The reviews for Personal Values have mostly been terrific, deservedly so. Headline ones are shown on the Hampstead resource – here’s the link again.
If you want to do a deep dive into the reviews themselves, the search term linked here will initiate that dive for you.
Once again, the Hampstead Downstairs has done the business. Janie and I really like that place. And it’s great to be back at the theatre, even if, for the time being, limiting ourselves to short plays for Pinky’s sake.