Review: WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS, The Mill at Sonning

After its dazzling festive offering of Top Hat, The Mill at Sonning is serving audiences a menu of new theatrical fare in 2023. To commence their new season, the usual two course buffet is quickly followed by a two act play: Jill Hyem's We'll Always Have Paris.

Billed as a romantic comedy, the eye-catching poster artwork courtesy of Oink Creative seems to promise a sort of European 9 to 5, but upon closer inspection the play scarcely lives up to this colourful concept. What's the French for beige?

The plot follows three former boarding school chums, now a cultured retiree, an anxious widow and a semi-professional divorcé. They reunite in France to discuss the dissatisfying trajectories of their lives and navigate personality clashes as hostess Nancy (Elizabeth Elvin) reintroduces reluctant carer Anna (Natalie Ogle) to Raquel (Debbie Arnold) who has recently returned from another rejuvenating Turkey excursion. Served with a curtly xenophobic French landlady (Basienka Blake) and a flirtatious local handyman (Richard Keep), Sonning ought to have another tasty theatrical treat on offer.

Arnold snatches the most laughs as the outrageous Raquel and is fabulously attired by Natalie Titchener while Natalie Ogle's transformative performance as a sexagenarian reborn is tremendously endearing.

As Managing and Artistic Director for The Mill at Sonning, Sally Hughes is already accustomed to wearing multiple different hats. She is also at the helm of this production as director and keeps what action there is brisk and lively with frequent use of the generous number of doors in Michael Holt's charming Parisian apartment set.

Unfortunately, the show's production photography, which lines the walls of the stairwell, begins to betray how uneventful the play actually is. Though Hyem establishes and develops her characters with legitimate depth, the events which unfold never prove compelling enough to justify the theatricalisation of this story and the writing feels better suited to decades-old British sitcoms. Each situation is, for the most part, encountered with unfailing politeness and a hint of repressed British indifference which makes the characters admirable, if disappointingly dull. It's a little like an episode of Rosemary & Thyme in which nobody is killed.

This isn't to say it's a bad play, rather one that is capably written, well performed and appropriately directed, but fatally unexciting. It is otherwise inoffensive, unless you object to bafflingly poor onstage monopoly gameplay (just because the French don't drive on the left doesn't mean order of play should pass to the right) or an evidently uninformed attempt at playing an acoustic guitar.

Admittedly this all may appeal entirely to the venue's usual crowd who charmedly tittered throughout the matinee performance, but for visitors expecting a compelling and purposeful narrative it might not be worth the traffic.

We'll Always Have Paris at The Mill at Sonning until 11 March

Photo Credit: Andrea Lambis