BWW Reviews: CONJUGAL RITES, The Courtyard Theatre, June 3 2011

It's non-stop bedroom action all they way! Conjugal Rites (at the Courtyard Theatre until July 3) is indeed set entirely in a bedroom, but the lack of "bedroom action" is just one of the problems facing Gen (Alexandra Boyd) and Barry (Gary Heron) as they half-heartedly celebrate their 21st wedding anniversary and look forward to two very different futures. Recently qualified as a solicitor, Gen is furiously catching up on time lost to being a "wife and mother" and is already enjoying the social independence that her financial independence brings. Barry - and you knew this didn't you - likes things like they used to be. 

Twenty years old now, Roger Hall's play includes a lot of telephone conversations (but no mobiles), worries over teenagers' education and money (but no mention of university tuition fees) and a double-income household (Barry is a dentist) concerned about the expense of purchasing a dishwasher. The early 90s setting could have been established by some additional lines about negative equity and soaring interest rates, but then the anachronistic wified bedroom laptop would have to be replaced by a 386 PC with a big box monochrome monitor. Like Gen and Barry, the script and the staging didn't hang together very well.

Conjugal Rites was adapted for TV as a sitcom and it's not difficult to see why. Its strengths lie in the wry portrayal of ordinary people facing the ordinary problems of growing apart. Its weakness - at least for me - is one that many television soaps and sitcoms share. The two principals are so selfish in their dedication to their own self-realisation, that they become two rather unappealing people bickering in front of us, seemingly happy to sacrifice their marriage on the altar individual fulfilment. Presented with a man and a woman for whom I found little sympathy, I struggled to engage with the tension of the stick or twist final reckoning.

But, as the viewing figures for Eastenders and Coronation Street prove, there's plenty of people who enjoy watching couples squabble over the dilemmas growing apart inevitable throws up. I suspect the audience for Conjugal Rites is found among the devotees of primetime soaps and, with plenty of highbrow London theatre available for those with other tastes, why not? 

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