Just Between Ourselves is on its National Tour with the first run of dates at the New Wolsey Theatre. A play by Alan Ayckbourn set in the 1970s about ordinary folk getting on with their daily lives, until the cracks and tensions start to show.
Dennis (Tom Richardson) tinkers in his garage when he’s not at work and tries to mend the things that are broken, much to his wife, Vera’s (Holly Smith) despair as he either takes ages or the quality of the fix is never quite right. However, Vera has his Mother Marjorie (Connie Walker), to keep her company, although she is a mother who always seems to be interfering and is possessive about Dennis. Dennis loves both of them, in his own way.
There are only four scenes and each scene happens to be a birthday of at least one of the characters. Dennis believes in star signs and coincidences, plus he loves to make his birthday special as it reminds him of his dad.
Dennis is trying to sell the car that Vera no longer drives and Neil (Joseph Clowser) comes over to take a look, although he has no idea about cars or whether he should be buying it for his wife Pam (Helen Phillips). From this first interaction the two couples form a friendship and we get to see how this friendship develops over the course of a year through three more ‘birthday’ scenes.
During these scenes we are shown the stresses and strains of their lives, but also the slow build-up of Vera heading towards a nervous breakdown. However, it’s not just Vera who is suffering with issues.
As it was written in the 1970s it is accurate portrayal rather than trying to imagine what it was like in the 70s, the authenticity comes from the male/female attitudes, and you can feel the frustrations of the women who are wanting their independence but can’t break out of the situation, which in turn leads to drinking problems or mental health issues. However, it wasn’t just the women who were having issues, for the men it was even harder to deal with mental health issues at this time and this was probably a brave move to include such a topic.
It’s not a happy ending and in a way it’s not a complete story, it’s as though we’ve just been given an insight into these people’s daily lives. It did contain some humour and most was intentional, which lightened the darker themes of mental health, but maybe some of the guffaws were because of the reminder of how things were 50 years ago.
It’s an interesting snippet of 1970s social commentary and shows how far we have come with regards to mental health.
The set was very cool – we were in Dennis’s garage with the car and his back patio. The cast were good a portraying the characters and attitudes of this era.
This is playing at New Wolsey Theatre until Saturday 1st March – click here for more.
In association with Grapevine.
With thanks to The New Wolsey Theatre.