A Taste Of Honey - Richmond

Reviewed By: David Munro

Shelagh Delaney was a 19-year-old girl when, in 1958, she sent the typescript of her play, A Taste of Honey, to Joan Littlewood who was then running the Theatre Royal, Stratford in East London.

In her accompanying letter she said that she had first gone to theatre a fortnight before, which had inspired her so that she “set to and wrote this little epic”. Miss Littlewood’s first impression was that amateur though it was, there was something about it that was worthy of salvage.

There is little of a plot; Helen, a woman of 40, goes off with her boyfriend leaving her teenage daughter, Jo, to spend Christmas alone. Jo meets and sleeps with a black seaman who returns to sea; some months later she finds she is pregnant. Geoff, a gay student, moves in with her, looks after her and helps her to adjust to her situation and life.

Miss Littlewood realised that a lot of work was needed but she put it into production relying on the skill of her cast to improvise and bring life to the piece which they succeeded in doing so well that when the play opened in May 1958 it was a resounding success.

In 1959, after another short run at Stratford, it was transferred, with the same principals, Avis Bunnage as Helen, Frances Cuka as Jo and a former co-op grant student, Murray Melvin as Geoff, to Wyndhams Theatre.

Its success continued and it closed after a transfer to the Criterion Theatre with a run of 349 performances to its credit and a new fashionable celebrity in Miss Delaney.

It did not stop there; in 1961, there was successful film directed by Tony Richardson with an unknown actress, Rita Tushingham, making her screen debut as Jo, Dora Bryan as Helen and Murray Melvin repeating his stage success as Geoff. Most people nowadays remember the film and forget the play, which is why it is pleasant to have a chance to refresh one’s memory of the original.

The present tour is an Oldham Coliseum Production which if not Salford (where the play is set) is sufficiently close, you would have thought, to have enabled the cast and director to put a stamp of authenticity on the proceedings which they certainly have.

Liz Ascroft’s set, which shows the squalid little bed-sitter and the street outside leading up to the canal, is wonderfully evocative of the feeling of the grimy little streets so typical of the old mill towns and the cast blend naturally into the setting.

Helen is a tarty yet basically good-hearted woman who cannot understand why she should not put her own desires before her daughter’s happiness. Samantha Giles captures her character brilliantly; she plays her as hard, brassy yet basically insecure, a soft-centred bitch capable though of instant cruelty such as when she throws Geoff out of her daughter’s life.

It is a fiendishly accurate delineation of the women one can see in Yates Wine Lodge on their predatory prowl for male prey. A marvellous characterisation of an unpleasant and unlovable woman who quite believably could leave her daughter stranded and nonchalantly accept the consequences as part of her selfish life’s routine.

Miss Giles is an actress to be reckoned with. I hope that she resists the lure of the box and gives us the pleasure of more such superb performances in the future.

Her co-star, Bruno Langley, as Geoff was a revelation. I remember him in Coronation Street as a dull, rather unbelievable character whose gay persona sat uneasily on his shoulders. Last night, he brought vividly to life the gay art student without descending to overtly camp postures or attitudes.

It was a beautifully understated performance which allowed you to see the unhappiness beneath his somewhat happy go lucky exterior. One could understand why Jo relied on him and one felt for him when he was so rudely turned out by Helen.

Another performance to remember and I hope Mr Langley has put the “Street” well behind him as I feel on last night’s performance that television’s loss is very much the stage’s gain.

Jo, the third side of the triangle, developed from schoolgirl to expectant mother quite naturally as portrayed by Samantha Robinson. I could have wished to see a little more of her mother in the performance, as clearly the character is meant to have a hard core to her, otherwise her development loses a bit of credibility. It was a good performance and, in its way, very warm and touching but possibly a little too naïve.

One feels that the character had lost her innocence before she was seduced by her sailor, having been brought up by Helen, and this didn’t really come across.

Despite that it was a very good performance and, in her scenes with Helen and Geoff, her Jo certainly maintained her corner with conviction and sincerity.

My criticism is more over the reading of the character than of the performance for which I can only have praise.

Chris Jack and Andonis Anthony were good foils for the two Samanthas as their respective lovers but their parts, as written, really only gave each one good scene which, to do them their justice, they made the most of.

Miss Delaney clearly saw the characters as types and it was good to see them fleshed out so successfully.

In short, this is a very good production of what is not so good a play, although with this cast you don’t realise that until you are on your way home. I certainly thought the characters and their problems were more forceful last night than I remember them from the film and more according to Miss Delaney’s book.

If it is true, she wrote the play because of her distaste for Rattigan and his ilk. Then had she been a novice in the theatre last night, she could hardly have avoided acquiring a taste for acting and theatre, which in the event might have deprived us of A Taste of Honey. Now there’s a thought for the day!

© Indie London, 6/6/06

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