Under the Blue Sky - 2000 ( Archived )

Reviews

newspaper reviews

(L to R) Justin Salinger as Nick, Samantha Edmonds as Helen, Jonathan Cullen as Graham, Sheila Hancock as Anne

Production photography by Ivan Kyncl

Direction: Rufus Norris.
Design: Katrina Lindsay.
Lighting: Johanna Town.
Sound: Rich Wals

Cast: Jonathan Cullen, Samanatha Edmonds, Sheila Hancock, Lisa Palfrey, Justin Salinger, Stanley Townsend.

“Like perfect blue skies, first-class new plays are few and far between, but when they appear they send your spirits soaring. Just such a heavenly piece of writing is the latest by 27-year-old David Eldridge.

“Dont be put off by the fact that it is about teachers. Theres no mention of course modules or exam boards in these interconnected playlets, which journey from the ravaged East End of London to rural Devon, via Eldridges native Essex. The after-hours conversations of three pairs of workmates reveal the teenage side of pedagogues a recipe for humour as well as pathos.

“ Two hours in the company of Eldridge is an education in wit and compassion. Teachers with thin skins should think twice, though before bringing a school party”

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH Dominic Cavendish Thursday 21 September

“Presented in a traverse-staging with just a bed at one end of the long acting area and a kitchen range at the other; Rufus Norriss splendid production coaxes some beautifully detailed acting from a crack cast. Coitus interruptus is seen at its most farcical at the start of the second episode when a furiously snogging couple tumble onto the bed, dry humping to a panting fantasy of him being a ravenous battle-scarred hero just back from the war.

“But then, with sublimely timed bathos, our mustachioed war-god comes even before penetration and emerges (in Jonathan Cullens expertly funny-sad and uncondescending performances) as plain old detumescent Graham Ibbotson, staff-room bore-in-residence and raging virgin.

“Sexually obsessed with his colleague Michelle (Lisa Palfrey), a Welsh slapper, he is now treated to her cackling derision as she explains that she only wanted to bed him in order to spite Nick (Justin Salinger), a character that we have already seen being equivalently horrid to another adoring teacher.

“This repeated pattern of unequal love is eventually broken in the final scene, played with a wonderful sensitive humanity and warm humour by Sheila Hancock and Stanley Townsend. Two teachers from different schools who have gone on platonic joint holidays, they come close to parting because of her worry about the 20-year age gap between them. The sequence in which Townsends big Irish bear of a man forces an at first reluctant, then parodic, then besotted Hancock into bopping to the tape of “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” may sound corny in principle, but its one of the most delightful and touching things currently on the London stage.

“There are lines that make you laugh out loud (as when Michelle says of a staff-room lothario: “A thousand humiliations behind closed doors and yet so, so pleasant on parents evening”) and details that show a truly poetic eye (the aunt, at the Front, noticing, as she bathes her young soldiers wounds, that his acne has disappeared). At the end, as they take their bows, the cast have the glow of people who know that they are taking part in something special.”

THE INDEPENDENT Paul Taylor Thursday 21 September

“The playwright David Eldridge has been labelled “promising” ever since Serving It Up at the Bush four years ago. With this new play at the Royal Courts Theatre Upstairs, that promise is richly fulfilled. Its kind of a teachers La Ronde, which deals, in wittily circular fashion with romantic and sexual agony among the academic classes.

“an absorbing play, directed with cool precision by Rufus Norris and finely acted by the three couples. Justin Salinger and Samantha Edmonds invest their kitchen encounter with a sense of danger, Lisa Palfrey and Jonathan Cullen romp exquisitely in the bedroom, and Sheila Hancock and Stanley Townsend subtly suggest that mature teachers are best equipped to learn a lesson in romantic love.”

THE GUARDIAN Michael Billington Thursday 21 September