REVIEW: AFTER ALL THESE YEARS at Theatre at the Tabard, Chiswick 7 – 24 February 2024

‘Giles Cole writes Rattigan-lite.’ ★★ ½

There are plays that nourish the soul. There are moments in theatre that sing like the pint of Carlsberg sang to John Mills in Ice Cool in Alex. And there are plays that are more like toasted cheese. There’s nothing wrong with toasted cheese, but it rarely generates much excitement. After All These Years is cheese-on-toast theatre. It’s quite well done, the sets do what they’re supposed to, the cast of veteran actors familiar from a thousand tv shows are perfectly competent, and the writing describes the situations it wants to describe, tells the jokes it wants to tell, and occupies a couple of hours of entertainment time. It’s hard to imagine anyone learning much or growing much or understanding much more when the show has finished than they knew before.

Three short acts tell the story of two couples of advanced years. There are secrets to be shared, mysteries to be uncovered, consequences to be endured. The secrets are not earth-shattering, the mysteries are thoroughly telegraphed, and the consequences aren’t very hard to cope with. One of the characters is amusingly scatterbrained at the start and by the end appears to have mild dementia, after a stroke suffered between acts two and three, but it’s hard to care much. It’s hard to care much about any of them. They used to be in show biz, then got unspecified jobs in unspecified offices and left glamour behind, though the smell of grease-paint haunts them still. It doesn’t make them particularly interesting. Giles Cole writes Rattigan-lite. Rattigan’s characters don’t reveal anything because revelation would destroy them. Giles Cole’s characters reveal everything because none of it matters much, to each other or to the audience.

There’s nothing wrong with cheese on toast, but it often leaves you wanting something better. After All These Years is adequate theatre that leaves you wanting better theatre.

REVIEW: AFTER ALL THESE YEARS at Theatre at the Tabard, Chiswick 7 – 24 February 2024

https://tabard.org.uk/whats-on/after-all-these-years/

Cast: Judy Buxton, Graham Pountney, Jeffrey Holland, Carol Ball

Writer and Co-Producer: Giles Cole

Actor and Director: Graham Pountney

Reviewed by Chris Lilly