Writer: Noel Coward in a version by Emma Rice
Director: Rob Ellis
Adapted as a stage play by Emma Rice in 2008, Noel Coward and David Lean’s beloved film comes to the Tower Theatre for a sedate run. The difficulty for the actors is taking on cinematic roles so famous they are part of the cultural canon and make them their own while never mocking the clipped restraint of the original. The Tower company have variable success with this both in representing the source material and in the cabaret staging that Rice places around it.
In wartime Milford, a respectable housewife and successful doctor meet in the train station tearoom and begin an unconsummated affair on a succession of happy and then miserable Thursdays. Meanwhile the tearoom staff explore more open forms of love amongst themselves as life passes through the café.
However much we may snigger at the stylised voices and emotional trembling of the melodramatic film, the mounting emotional impact of Laura and Alec’s affair is timelessly affecting and beautiful – a huge thing for any group of actors to live up to, and it is no coincidence that Coward’s original one act play is now rarely performed. This new production directed by Rob Ellis never quite builds the same atmosphere either of the film or of Rice’s innovative dramatic interpretation which was able to combine excerpts from the movie with her dynamic music hall style. Part of that is a variable quality of the music performances, some excellent, others less polished, but also the limited chemistry between Laura and Alec that doesn’t quite set the stage or the train station alight as it should.
Victoria Flint’s Laura grows very nicely into the role, making the conflicted duty and inner torment her own, so even in the most heightened moments her dilemma feels very real and, in the best way, ordinary. Dom Ward’s Alec is less successfully grounded and not quite as convincing as the married doctor playing hooky once a week, and here really it is very difficult to shake the towering simplicity and gravity of Trevor Howard’s defining interpretation. This Alec is too light, not grave or dignified enough about his own feelings and the power of them, and as a result why Laura would risk everything on stolen Thursdays with him is uncertain.
Among the secondary cast, the mirrored love stories among the station staff don’t quite stand as tall as they could. Deborah Ley is too pitchy as the forceful Mrs Bagot but Imogen Front’s Beryl and Tom Lafferty’s Stanley make a fine pairing with luscious voices as they sing duets throughout. Fiyin Ifebogun is great as crashing bore Dolly but the cast could generally slow the delivery slightly to build more time for the emotional impact to smoulder – this should be the stopping service instead of the fateful express.
The Tower Theatre may not have Emma Rice’s resources but make a decent fist of implying the railway station with lighting and sound effects and some projections as the affair and its consequences intensify. Of all the revivals that the Tower Theatre has taken on, this one perhaps has the biggest shadow overhead, but this thoughtful production is a sound attempt.
Runs until 25 April 2026
