Heart and humour in play (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Heart and humour in play

9:30am Friday 27th March 2009 in

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THERE is a lot of heart and humour in Absolutely Frank, a play about unfulfilled ambitions and the bite of the real world.

Experienced stage and screen actor Geoffrey Hughes – Twiggy in The Royle Family and Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances – gives an endearing performance as the ageing Frank, who has been installing giant letters on the side of buildings for the past 25 years, but has ambitions of becoming a famous spy novelist.

The two-man play sees Frank giving teenage apprentice Alan (Des O’Malley) a few “lessons in life” on his first day in the job – a day on which Frank’s world comes crashing down as he realises that despite a burning ambition to see his name in print and his novels turned into Sean Connery films, he has no talent as a writer.

In the second half, a role reversal means the portly Frank has become the apprentice in an electrical goods store after long-term unemployment, and is supervised by none other than assistant manager Alan, whose mannerisms have changed from a shoulder-shrugging teen to a finger-clicking, acronym-driven salesman.

The plot may not sound riveting, but the heavily character-based play makes an interesting comparison between an ageing man who knows what he wants but is not good enough to achieve it and a youth who does not pursue his talent.

Hughes and O’Malley have a great on-stage chemistry and both come across very naturally. Their banter is at moments laugh-out-loud and at others quite touching as they gradually learn from each other.

Penned by Tim Firth – who has written for the stage and television and whose film credits include Calendar Girls and Kinky Boots – Absolutely Frank started life as a one-act piece before he extended it into the full-length play that was first performed in 2006.

Firth successfully builds up the audience’s empathy for his two men, although my one criticism is that the message is not clear – are we being told to pursue our ambitions or not?

The set is simple but effective, cleverly setting the scene in the first half of Frank and Alan five storeys up on the ledge of an office block, where they are putting up letters.

All in all, it’s a pleasant evening of theatre.

l Absolutely Frank is running at The Haymarket until Saturday, and tickets can be purchased from the box office on 01256 844244 or at anvilarts.org.uk