Cast and Director – credit: BeLouder Photography
The line between Am-dram – Amateur Dramatics – and professional, touring theatre productions can sometimes be almost indistinguishable. Amy’s View, by West Wickham’s ‘Am-dram group’, Matchbox Theatre, was a case in point. A church hall with the centre of the room temporarily transformed into a suburban lounge in Pangbourne, Berkshire, was hardly the Old Vic. Even more so when a local fireworks display tried and failed to distract the actors in the second half of the night. This, though, is rather the point. Am-dram isn’t about superior settings (though the scenery here, programme note: ‘Special thanks to Penny Davis for loaning the contents of her house’, did the job very well), or slick acting. Even so, the acting in this performance was of a very high standard, with no noticeable dropped lines or hissed prompts, and characters who were portrayed with real empathy and conviction. Am-dram is more about community and local people expressing and enjoying themselves, and you just had to experience the buzz of the actors when they came sweatily off stage at the end to chat with audience stragglers to realise that.
This was quite a demanding play and the cast deserve all the plaudits they will receive. The play, built around the world view and choices of a young woman, Amy Thomas (Alice Foster, who perfectly portrayed the anguish her character repeatedly experienced), involved a small cast who over the two or so hours of the show needed to gel to best showcase a plot exploring love, resilience, self-deception, use and abuse, manipulation, hope, loss, failure, and more. Even so, the pace of the show was a real strength, and a credit to Director Tim Pearce. None of emotional load felt crammed in or rushed, but the themes grew more poignant as the night went on.
The 16-year journey played out before us began with the first encounter with Amy and her gawky, difficult boyfriend Dominic Tyghe (James Mercer), when first he met Amy’s actress mother Esme (Anna Seabrook), and Amy’s grandmother, Evelyn Thomas (Dot Pullan), plus Esme’s friend and financial adviser, Frank Oddie (Steve Tolmie). By the end, two of the cast had passed away, another had been exposed as a fraud, and others had painfully lived out the consequences of their life choices, habits, and self-deceptions. The cast could not be faulted. Anna Seabrook as Esme was a captivating bundle of sanctimonious self-regard, until it was punctured by unexpected crises; Dot Pullan as Evelyn had a convincing cameo role as a life-relishing elderly person giving way to dementia; James Mercer as Dominic had grown professionally, but without becoming much more rounded and less brittle as a human being; and Steven Tolmie as Frank had lost his feigned innocence. Meanwhile, a latecomer to proceedings, innocent young actor Toby Cole (Zack Stiling), ended up losing most of his clothes.
In our day to day lives, we seldom see behind the masks that people present to each other. Amy’s View put those masks to one side and was a great night’s entertainment.
Do see an upcoming Matchbox Theatre show if you can. Their website is https://thematchboxtheatre.co.uk.
Bromley Buzz 