Sticking Together

Review

Sticking Together

The homely, intimacy of The Bank Art Centre, Eye, is ideal for Alan Huckle’s plays and monologues.
Founder of EyesWrite, he regularly presents his own work there, with experienced local actors.
His women characters were not so wicked on this occasion. But there was a feeling of sex wars, people made solitary by divorce, scenes on benches and cliff edges.
His strength is in dialogue, with few punches pulled, rather than physical theatricality.
Rob Backhouse, as a doctor with a grudge, had the kind of part that Huckle women have had. The monologue to a man he had incapacitated, in the play Life, was a highpoint.
Cherryl Jeffries, Pat Parris and Paul Baker delivered character monologues and then showed their versatility in playlets.
Alan Bolton always does a good line in expostulating bluster. Julie Bolton can play bluestocking or brassy with ease.
DIY invariably causes stage conflict, as it did in the final play Sticking Together, with Chris Strachan splendidly nerdy.

Basil Abbott