The Southbury Child - Chichester Festival / Bridge Theatre

I saw it yesterday afternoon and enjoyed it enormously. I actually found it funnier than "The Unfriend", although in parts it was heart-wrenching; I was in tears at the end and so was the woman next to me. The acting was superb, particularly Alex Jennings and Phoebe Nicholls.

The theatre was about 75-80 per cent full. I did wonder what the attendence would be like as a friend organises block booking discount tickets for the local U3A and there wasn't a single request for tickets for this play. Their loss, I say.

Interesting to have 2 stars in the Gdn and 5 stars in the Telegraph -- is the play THAT politically divisive?

Absolutely agree about that.  There were audible gasps the night I saw it - so well played by the “victims” too.  Generally fantastic acting all round!  Play of the year for the Telegraph!

Watched this tonight at the Bridge Theatre. Can’t say it did too much for me. Didn’t find it funny bar the odd line and actually sort of guessed the shocking moment in the second half. But most others in the audience seemed to enjoy it so maybe it’s just me! 😊

Paid £15 for a stalls seat which I was very happy with, though it wasn’t a full house.

I was round the side in J so can't personally speak from experience. However, most of the action in this takes place mid-way back on the stage, so I don't think it would feel too close at all. Most of the time you've got characters speaking to each other over the table that is the main part of the set, and you can find photos of that on social media for reference about its placement.

There is a small piece of furniture right at the front of the stage - I guess you could call it a backless chaise longue? It didn't look big enough to block sightlines (again, not speaking from experience) and I can only recall one moment where two characters sat on it and had their back to those in the front. 

Hope that's useful.

I saw this tonight and I have to say I was impressed. It is a very well written and thoughtful piece which hits the target without shocking - because it does not seek to shock.

Alex Jennings as the principled but flawed vicar was superb and Josh Finan, playing a character who could have walked in from "Jerusalem", gives a great performance too but none of the others is far behind. Great pace and variety, well directed and attractively staged, what's not to like? Plays about matters of conscience are not that common these days because a conscience is a disposable luxury these days. If this is an elegy of sorts to a dying Church which fiddles with morality without religion others will focus on the telling points made about the "me me me" generation who want everything custom-made to their own tastes and reduce 5,000 years of history to a selfie and a fake smile.

Certainly for me one of the plays of the year so far. Most definitely worth watching.

I'd say it was 90/95% attendance tonight.

Liked the neatly planned first half; loved the messy second half. Wonderful performances from Alex Jennings, Josh Finan and Phoebe Nicholls!

Some spoilers follow. . .

This is one of those plays, like "Jerusalem," where a mob threatens to sweep an individual away because of their quirks. Except, unlike Mark Rylance's Johnny Rooster Byron, who is too wild, Alex Jennings's David Highland (yes, he's parked himself on the "high land" and won't budge lol) is too much of a stick-in-the-mud.

Unfortunately, Highland is really hard to believe in, and it hurts the play. This is a Vicar who is enormously agreeable (believable), cheats on his wife (believable) is an alcoholic (believable), is willing to decorate a church with mountains of flowers (believable), but considers decorating a church with balloons to mollify a family grieving a dead child as absolutely unacceptable (ridiculous, given his flexibility over everything else). I could not wrap my head round it.

Maybe Beresford intends us not to understand Highland, and the point is that we must learn to deal with people we don't understand. He certainly never gives Highland a speech that convincingly explains his inflexibility in the face of such overwhelming grief. And the failure by Beresford to make us understand his reasons, even if we don't agree with them, diminishes our engagement.

Luckily, Beresford engages us strongly in two other ways: he makes Highland massively agreeable and he puts him in conflict with every other character.

It's watching Highland engage with huge amounts of conflict so agreeably that is the beautiful heart of the play, and while the conflicts of the first half are schematic and obvious and based around balloons, the conflicts of the second half are messy, complicated and human and infinitely more riveting because of it.

The entire cast are natural and convincing in their roles, but, along with the affable Jennings (nobody does affability as well as Jennings), the most compelling to watch are Josh Finan and Phoebe Nicholls, who play the dead girl's Dad and Highland's wife respectively.

Nicholls fills a calm, protective demeanour with so much boiling resentment, you think she might explode (she's the sort of partner who believes her partner is dreadful, but believes only she has earned the right to say so lol, and she convincingly loves him anyway); and Josh Finan is equally fascinating, amusing in his bluntness, and in the way he is equally as agreeable as Jennings, despite being utterly at odds, yet he maintains a mystery about this pivotal character, with micro-expressions and pauses that make you question what really lies beneath the surface. Finan was equally enigmatic as the most "shook" character in Southwark Playhouse's "Shook," and he has mastered that layered acting that constantly has you guessing what's really going on.

As a play about Church conflicts, this play is mostly nonsense, but as a play about how we all must try to get on with each other, it's mostly wonderful.

4 stars of enjoyment from me.

This is a shame. It sounds terrific and Alex Jennings never disappoints. I hope to see it at the end of August. Hope it picks up for them

The warm weather providing other diversions maybe? 

Having been at todays matinee, I certainly had a good time watching this production and having had a couple of hours to chew over my thoughts, I’d certainly agree with what Steve has posted in his review a few days ago. This really is a fantastic cast and there really isn’t a weak link amongst them. Alex Jennings as always is a joy to watch both on stage and screen and he doesn’t disappoint here despite portraying a religious character that as an audience member can be hard to work out his logic on different issues as Steve has discussed which I personally found to be a weak spot in this play.

The whole church conflict issue didn’t really do a lot for me but where I was most engaged was with the relationships and conflicts between the different characters which was certainly where the writing was much stronger and far more believable as the play progressed, particularly in Act 2 which for me was the better of the two Acts. The scene in the middle of this Act certainly got a response from the audience as no one saw it coming and that is ultimately due to the terrific acting of the cast members involved.

There was plenty of humour in the writing delivered superbly by the cast that kept us laughing during the show which balanced out well with the more emotionally charged writing and acting in Act 2.

With the rest if the cast, there was much praise being given from audience members at the end of the show for Sarah Twomey as the dead girl’s mum. Despite not having much stage time, the time she is on stage, she was definitely a compelling watch. Also shout outs to Josh Finan and Phoebe Nicholls for their roles in the show. Two wonderful performances.

Being sat in the A58 of the stalls (£25) offered an excellent view of the show (stage height same as SLC) with only brief periods where I was faced with somebody’s back to me. Sadly from where I was sat, I could see plenty of empty seats within the auditorium. I’m surprised the box office didn’t close the galleries this afternoon. and stick everyone in the stalls as there was plenty of room.

Rating - 4⭐️

Oh gosh you recognised me? You should have said hello. Have we met before?