CARL’S STORY

CARL’S STORY

BY GAVIN MILLER

at the Tabard Theatre

Annie and Beth are very close friends. They meet at the coffee shop where all the arty types go. A place where ‘a cup of coffee costs about six quid’ quote from Darcy, Annie’s very pretty teenage daughter played by Lucia Dean, currently an acting student who, I believe , should have a good future in the theatre. She has a liveliness with brightens up the rather ordinary content of the play..

It is not surprising that Darcy disapproves of the coffee shop.. It is a very strange coffee shop that has a colourful backdrop and a standard lamp, but apart from that looks like a bus shelter.  Just three chairs in a row and a low wooden table with a glass of water on it.

Very un cosy which does not help the play at all which mostly consists of people talking to the audience telling their stories in a casual manner. They are good working actors but there is nothing dramatic or entertaining about their performances.

Ok, then Beth played by Emma Bernbach, a divorcee and currently a single person, is  at a loss to understand is why her best friend Annie (Jenny Whiffen) seems keen for her to have an affair with Carl, Annie’s  husband  – even let him take her away for the weekend.

Carl is described at length by the cast.  The characters each take the stage and address the audience with their stories about Carl.

Annie, Carl’s wife is a journalist and is aware that the truth is always different in many ways, depending on how  it is told. None of the others have even considered this as a possibility.

She turns down jobs that require her using private telephone conversations overheard by the paps.

She also tends to say really strange things:-

‘If Carl and I didn’t love each other there wouldn’t be a problem’  she says and ‘Carl only talks about things he doesn’t talk about’

Tommy Carter plays John, the ex husband of Beth and he gives us a little more information about Carl.  He also has a scene with Darcy which brightens things up a bit.

What more can I say? I was at a loss to understand most of it and the resolution was surely pretty clear from the start.  Obviously Carl – apparently a great musician, never appears.

I don’t know where Gavin Miller got this story. All I can suggest is that he put it back.