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JUST Between Ourselves, at Windsor Theatre Royal, is grimly funny and well worth seeing.
The dark comedy about toxic relationships drew plenty of laughs on press night – and more than a few sharp intakes of breath.
Set in 1976, it’s a story of its time whose characters operate within the gender roles and expectations of their decade.
But the picture it paints of the emotional damage that can be inflicted by derision, manipulation and cowardice is timeless.
We are just as capable in this day and age of being cruel, and it is no bad thing to see cruelty up close and personal once in a while, just to remind ourselves what it looks like.
Dennis and Vera are not happy.
Vera is on the verge of nervous collapse, reasons for which become gradually more apparent.
Her husband Dennis is emotionally witless and a coward.
His mother, Marjorie, who lives with them, is a monster in slippers.
The play opens with Dennis (Tom Richardson) in his garage, inexpertly fiddling with defective electrical items and doing all he can to avoid the one thing he should be attempting to mend, his relationship with his wife.
He is a man whose gratingly cheerful and inappropriate humour is like fingernails down a blackboard.
Vera (Holly Smith) is just managing to cope with the living hell of residing with Marjorie.
She is fast becoming a caricature of herself, or even a whisper.
Marjorie (Connie Walker) is the reason they are both broken.
This woman’s passive aggressive attentions have produced an ineffective son, and a daughter-in-law nearing mental collapse.
It’s a brittle household, whose members courteously and murderously offer teacups and advice.
Then throw into the mix a couple who’ve come to buy Vera’s car.
Pam (Helen Phillips) is a frustrated stay-at-home mother, unfulfilled and mourning lost work opportunities.
Her husband Neil (Joseph Clowser) is spineless and seemingly incapable of decision-making.
Put all of them together, add a birthday party or two, and stand well back…
Michael Cabot has directed Just Between Ourselves with the compassion it deserves.
Without shying away from its comic and somewhat caricatured 70s roots, he nevertheless allows moments of genuine pain to strike home, in this ‘deep and wonderful understanding of suffering.’
And it’s a strong cast that presents the awful but fascinating, and funny, story.
All manage to combine fractured outer selves with inner disintegration, and to convey the pain of living in an era that has yet to understand the phrase ‘it’s okay to not be okay’.
Just Between Ourselves can be seen at Windsor Theatre Royal until Saturday, April 5, after which it tours nationally until July.
Doors open on Friday, April 4 at 7.30pm, and on Saturday, April 5 at 2.30pm and 7.30pm.
Tickets cost from £19.50, and the show is suitable for ages 14 and over.
For tickets and information, visit: theatreroyalwindsor.co.uk
