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Review

Taking Steps, New Forest Players, Performing Arts Centre, Ballard School

THIS play was, for me, Ayckbourn at his best: genuinely funny, uncomplicated – well, relatively – and almost entirely lacking the angst that makes some of his later works such a bitter-sweet experience.

Its main character, Roland Crabbe is about to buy the house he currently rents from Leslie (Peter Davies). But his wife Elizabeth (Sue Ellis) is about to leave him, her brother Mark (P J Stevens) has a fiancée (Michiela Wisken) in the attic and Tristram, the solicitor’s clerk sent to oversee the sale, is more than slightly odd.

Ann Ramm’s brilliantly timed production is a joy, as is the clever set, and her cast is outstanding. I hope they will forgive me for singling out two of them, but I will never forget John Tickner’s Roland descending so superbly into drunken and pill-induced oblivion, or Joshua Haberfield’s Tristram, which was simply one of the funniest character performances I have ever seen, particularly his way of running downstairs. I can’t explain - you really must see for yourself.

Linda Kirkman 

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