“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to
deceive!” So wrote Sir Walter Scott in his poem “Marmion”. However, this line
could be the motto for many plays that have graced the British stage in the 20th
and 21st centuries, with Alan Ayckbourn’s “Relatively Speaking” definitely
being among their number. It is a typical example of the English “comedy of
confusion” that has proved popular with audiences for many years. Indeed, the
genre has its roots as far back as the comedies of Shakespeare and Sheridan, with
many more since then.
Alan Ayckbourn (born in London in 1939) has written more than
70 plays, most of which have enjoyed considerable success. The world he
portrays is that of lower-middle-class suburbia with its particular pretensions
and moralities. Nearly all his plays have been first performed at the theatre
managed by Ayckbourn (until 2009) in the Yorkshire seaside resort of
Scarborough, before they hit the London stage.
Ayckbourn’s plays are therefore first seen by audiences of
lower-middle-class holidaymakers who are looking, first and foremost, to be
entertained but who are confronted with people on stage with whom they can
relate. They can thus imagine themselves facing similar situations and so form
bonds with the characters in question. The best comedies work by persuading
audiences to look inside themselves, and that is one important reason for
Ayckbourn’s continuing success.
“Relatively Speaking” dates from 1965 and is one of
Ayckbourn’s earliest plays; indeed, it was his first big success. It had its
Scarborough premiere on 9th July 1965 and was first seen in London’s
West End (at the Duke of York’s Theatre) on 29th March 1967. It has
been revived many times since then and has always been well received due to its
sparkling dialogue and absurd misunderstandings.
It is a play in two acts and has only four characters.
The play opens in Ginny’s London flat which she shares with
Greg, her lover. Ginny is on the point of leaving the flat in order to pay a
visit, so she says, to her parents in Buckinghamshire. While she is getting her
things together, Greg finds a pair of slippers under the bed that he knows are
not his. This discovery, which is on a par with the flowers and chocolates that
are also evident in the flat, causes him mixed feelings, as the realisation
that there could be another man in Ginny’s life evinces a spark of jealousy in
him but also leads him to think that this would be good time to propose
marriage in the hope of securing her for himself.
Greg suddenly has a bright idea, which is that if he follows
Ginny to her parents’ house he will be able to ask her father for permission to
marry Ginny as well as making the proposal directly to her. This will mean
getting on the same train as Ginny but without being seen, so off he goes
shortly after she leaves.
The second act is set at the house in Buckinghamshire to
which Ginny has set off. Greg actually arrives at the house before Ginny does,
and so he is convinced that the man who opens the door is Ginny’s father, whereas
he (Philip) is actually her married lover, a much older man than Greg, and the
owner of the mysterious slippers. Philip is naturally confused, and imagines
that the woman Greg is asking to marry is Philip’s wife, Sheila.
Ginny’s object in making this trip had been to break the
relationship with Philip so that she could marry Greg. When she arrives she is
naturally shocked to find her two lovers in conversation with each other, and
she realises the importance of neither Greg nor Sheila finding out who Philip
really is. She therefore persuades Philip to pretend to be her father, which is
what Greg believes him to be. Greg also, of course, thinks that Sheila is
Ginny’s mother.
With this mixture of misunderstanding and deception, it is
no surprise that things get even more muddled until, by the end of the play, it
would seem that the chances of any of them remaining in a relationship with
anyone else are extremely slim. The one person who does not seem to have
grasped the truth by the time the curtain falls is Greg, whose naivety remains
intact throughout.
“Relatively Speaking” has no deep significance as a drama
unless it is the warning from Scott mentioned above. One’s sympathies can lie
with Greg, who believed that he was doing the right thing by forgetting about
the slippers and proposing to Ginny, but the latter was also being honourable
by taking steps to end the old relationship without involving Greg (although it
could be argued that she should have done this some time before). Nobody has
behaved maliciously, and the worst crime has been one of deception at a level
that most people would forgive.
In the final analysis, “Relatively Speaking” is a bit of
good clean fun in which nobody gets hurt and the audience members leave the
theatre feeling that they have had a good laugh and their money’s worth.
© John Welford
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