The Other Theatre Company’s most recent performance was an amateur world premiere of Marriage Rites by William Douglas-Home. Performed in the appropriately ecclesiastical setting of St Oswald’s Church in Lower Peover, this production even gave the audience the chance to join in with a spot of hymn singing.
Written back in in the 1980s, the play which is also known as David and Jonathan has the love that dare not speak its name as its central theme. In today’s context some of its language – as queer as a nine bob note and puff did come across as somewhat anachronistic and certainly not politically correct de nos jours.
Appreciating the difficulties of casting an amateur production, it was necessary to overlook the mismatch of ages among some of the cast. But what a tour de force from the trio of clergymen played by Roger Barlow (vicar), Bill Platt (dean) and Harry Kennedy as the bishop.
Fond of a bet, smoking like a chimney and drinking - as well as observing that the vicar had looked good in shorts as a young man - their reflections about the tricky situation in which they and their parishioners found themselves were often witty, funny and thought provoking. That said Friday night’s audience certainly did find the bishop’s six-page sermon a tad too long......
Young Edward Lawton as Jonathan handled the role as the jilted lover in a same sex relationship admirably and convincingly. The reactions of the Graham family - indignation, disgust, disbelief and shock were certainly registered but somewhat over shadowed by the higher powers of the ecclesiastical trio.
Thirty years on in a world which has witnessed the arrival of civil partnerships for same sex couples and marriages taking place since March 2014, the play’s content cannot fail to be somewhat outdated.
If the same play were written today, or indeed if this same play had been set in 2015 rather than 1985, we would probably have witnessed at least one of the clergy coming out and in a post Leveson era the press’s presence in the church would have been treated with far more contempt - except perhaps by one or more of the protagonists who would most definitely have sold their story to the highest bidder!
This was a brave choice, which will certainly have raised eyebrows and provoked discussion, redeemed by some excellent acting.
Review by Jane Hughes
For more information about this production, please see our Past Productions page for Marriage Rites.