
DONKEYS' YEARS (Rose Theatre, Kingston-on-Thames)
Verdict: A tour de farce
Rating:
There used to be a
cricket writer, Alan Gibson, whose despatches invariably included a
description of his calamitous train journey to the county ground from
which he was reporting. I thought of Gibson on my way to see Michael
Frayn’s ace 1976 farce Donkeys’ Years.
Farce
preceded the farce. My head full of politics and cobwebs, I clambered
aboard the wrong train, which then crawled at the pace of a slug. When I
finally realised my error, it took a while to find a connecting train.
That, too, made slow progress.
On
reaching Kingston I found no taxis to speed me to the Rose Theatre, so
had to run. I arrived with a stitch, bathed in sweat. And I had missed
the start.
...