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| Cast | |
| Jeffrey Bernard | Alexander Catto |
| Various | Chris Manning-Perry, Jean Sharp, Diana Scougall, Philip Vander Gught |
| Crew | |
| Stage Manager | Janet Hampton |
| Assistant Stage Manager | Pauline Clifton |
| Set Design | Steve Marshall |
| Set Construction | Steve Marshall, Paul Lay, Martyn Brewer |
| Backstage Assistant | Charlotte Wheeler |
| Lighting Design | Tim Hewitt |
| Lighting Operation | Georgia Robinson |
| Sound | Hayley Jacobs |
| PA to Stage Manager | David Hampton |
Review
Alive but unwell - again
It is unusual to write a play about someone who is both a friend and still in the land of the living with such frankness. This, however, was the case with Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell, which is both the title of the play by Keith Waterhouse and the form of a once common announcement in the Spectator which signified that JB's somewhat irregular column in the magazine was not going to appear - again!
The Edward Alderton Theatre is one of the few amateur companies to have met the demanding challenge set by a work in which Bernard has been accidentally locked in his favourite drinking haunt in Soho. After staggering from the toilet in which he had collapsed in an alcoholic stupor, he finds his way to the bar to spend the night recounting a life of gambling, drinking, womanizing and general debauchery. As he speaks, characters from his past wander in and out of the action to recreate sometimes dramatic, often funny and generally crude incidents that made him one of the best known as well as one of the most talented inhabitants of the newspaper world.
Playing Bernard, Alexander Catto gives a multi-faceted portrayal that cleverly captures the intellectualism of a man with little faith in his own talents or ability to cement relationships. While his forefinger constantly hovers over a metaphorical self-destruct button, he worries increasingly about his own mortality and counters this by more booze, more women and gratefully breathing in alcohol and cigarette fumes.
The problem with the production is
that, despite his crumpled clothes and the bags beneath his eyes, Catto
is too assured and self-possessed in the first act for someone who has
consumed, and is continuing to consume, a considerable amount of
vodka. If his level of inebriation in act two was to have opened the
play and then accentuated in the second half, the profanities, tilts
at the establishment and humanity would have appeared less stark and
offered an infinitely more humorous edge. Indeed, in act two on the
first night when Catto suffered a rare lapse of memory, his
brilliantly conceived ad-lib to the effect that "When you are as
drunk as I am, you can't expect me to remember everything!" had a
touch
of inspiration that would have had a hollow ring earlier in the
action.
Excellent support comes from Chris Manning-Perry, Jean Sharp, Diana Scougall and Philip Vander Gucht in roles ranging from poets to tarts. Directed by Steve Marshall, the production is enhanced by his excellent design of the Soho bar and very good lighting effects by Tim Hewitt.
Roy Atterbury
Kentish Times | 7 December 1995
