Review: Love and Other Misunderstandings at Theatre by the Lake

“Genuine laugh-out-loud moments… unfailingly funny…”

Love and Other Misunderstandings by Anton Chekhov, Georges Feydeau and Bernard Shaw, Theatre by the Lake

By Ken Powell

I adore Theatre by the Lake and I am not ashamed to admit it. Their productions always set a high bar and have done for decades. Their manner of preparing a season of productions has changed, though. Gone are the days of hiring in a company of actors for a whole season to put on an assortment of plays. While moving away from this planning towards co-productions with other theatres has seen no loss of quality, I do miss the intimate studio performances that would often put on lesser-known pieces by classic playwrights – such as, George Bernard Shaw, Georges Feydeau or Anton Chekhov.

Thank goodness then, that we have the Keswick Theatre Club, who are not afraid to tackle such beasts and give us treats that we would otherwise struggle to see performed live. While other groups are content to put on the likes of Oliver and Oklahoma – and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, quite the reverse – this local community theatre group sets itself the task of finding little-known gems. This club is exactly at the heart of what Theatre by the Lake is all about – and indeed its origins as a community project itself. They delight in showing audiences that local communities can handle the heavyweights just like the professionals.

Which is not to say that this little trio of one-act plays is serious and dull. Far from it. We see Shaw and Chekhov at their most playful and Feydeau is simply a genius at farce. The title Love and Other Misunderstandings tells you everything you need to know about these otherwise unrelated vignettes. Poems lost, mixed up addresses and misunderstandings of harmless comments lead to hiccups in love and cringing hilarity for those of us watching.

The Keswick Theatre Club do an admirable job of bringing out the joy and fun of these stories. Yes, there were some definite first-night nerves and some prompting needed, but on the whole the three trios of actors did very well indeed. I could probably have done without the Muppet-like Statler and Waldorf duo commentating between acts. It was a bit wooden and slightly condescending, labouring Shaw’s self-referencing to his hugely popular Candide in How He Lied to Her Husband, for instance (explained well enough in the programme notes). They were fun but would have been better placed doing their cameos while the stage was being prepared for the next act rather than after it was done. Nevertheless, it did mean there was a continuous and comical thread to all three plays and fair play for the decision to do this.

Those crits aside, there were some wonderful performances. Heidi Stafford was very funny as the silly and easily flappable high society wife regretting her love choices in How He Lied to Her Husband. Feydeau’s Love and Piano has the potential to be the most hilarious of the three, once nerves are conquered, with Paul Martin playing a very believable lothario – utterly bewildered by the woman he’s trying to woo. David Marshall and Shirley Muir, however, stole the whole evening in The Proposal, with riotous portrayals of father and daughter desperate to have her marry their neighbour but ill-equipped in temperament to achieve it. Marshall in particular is as good as any actor I’ve seen in the theatre studio over the last thirty years. Genuine laugh-out-loud moments.

I grew up lucky enough to be taken regularly by my parents to see productions like these by our local community theatre group in the Midlands. Those visits gave me a lifelong love of theatre that hasn’t diminished after thousands of shows all over the UK. If we don’t support our community theatre groups, what is the point of theatre at all? It is all about people coming together to make-believe for a while and discover a little more about ourselves along the way – and may that never stop. The Keswick Theatre Club richly deserve support, valiantly challenging themselves to present stories we wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to see. These three stories are unfailingly funny and you can’t help but enjoy these actors revelling in the parts. If you’re local and love theatre, you really should come and enjoy the fun too.

Love and Other Misunderstandings plays at Theatre by the Lake until Saturday 11 April. Tickets are available here.

Ken Powell is chief editor for Northern Arts Review and is also a bestselling author and writer for various publications around the world. A former school teacher, he continues to write educational books along with fiction and travelogues. You can find all his books and various websites here including his popular TEDx talk about the Global Village. He lives with his family in a wonderfully isolated village in West Cumbria where he enjoys drinking tea, chatting with the birds and winding up his dog. You can support his work (or just buy him a coffee) here.