NEVER go back to a former stomping ground. It can only reopen old wounds, stirring up sore memories, rivalries, jealousies, not so much in the returnee but more damagingly in those that had been left behind.
In writer-director Alan Ayckbourn's 79th play, the unwitting cataclysmic catalyst is Murray (Richard Stacey), the hero of the title, who had left his home town under a cloud 17 years ago and returns as a decorated soldier with a young Eastern European bride, Baba (Terenia Edwards in a terrific professional debut).
The town is to honour him, town band, mayoral ceremony and all, after squaddie Murray rescued children from a fire-ravaged building, but the terse mayor, Alice (Elizabeth Boag), expects him to leave again immediately. After all, he had jilted her at the altar all those years ago without explanation.
Elizabeth Boag as Alice, the Mayor, in Hero's Welcome. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Whereas Murray has moved on, embittered Alice has stored up resentment as if in a jar, marrying the kindly, supportive but naive Derek (Russell Dixon), throwing herself into civic duty and corrupt property deals while tolerating Derek's obsession with a hi-tech model railway that has seeped into every room. The toy train will make regular appearances as Ayckbourn comes up with yet another device for visual comedy.
Alas for Alice, she cannot hurry a Murray into leaving. Instead he intends to stay, re-open his family's dilapidated hotel and settle down with Baba. Tenacious and resourceful, she in turn will learn the English language, first from an outdated guide book ("how topping") and then with a tutor, to the point where she knows more long words than all around her: another delightful Ayckbourn comic ingredient amid the prevailing bleakness.
All Murray and Baba want is peace and a new life, but not only Alice is feeling malice. Insufferable, competitive posh brute Brad (Stephen Billington) and Murray had shared a rivalry over girls in younger days that involved Alice, and he has since slunk off into a sour marriage with Kara (Emma Manton), who is trapped by his incessant verbal abuse in a loveless relationship.
Richard Stacey, left, and Russell Dixon in Hero's Welcome. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Brad, one of Ayckbourn's most loathsome lousy men in his pantheon of rotten stags, sees Baba as a potential conquest to rekindle the old sparring days with Murray. "Love is only a sexual smokescreen," he sneers.
Michael Holt's set in the round is divided into the contrasting living rooms of three homes: a familiar Ayckbourn construction for comic mayhem from earlier days, but Hero's Welcome is Ibsen-black in its darkness yet still hugely humorous.
Child loss, murder, council corruption, a marriage in the fires of hell, the honour (or otherwise) of military service, paralysis, arson, all play their part as Ayckbourn's clouds thicken before a sentimental silver lining that is nevertheless outweighed by the destruction that has gone before.
Stacey's well-meaning Murray may be the maelstrom, but Ayckbourn is more intrigued by the older man, Dixon's stand-out Derek, and once more he goes to the heart of dissatisfied, frustrated women with such rare male insight. At 76, he is writing with a devastating combination of the sage and the rage.
Hero's Welcome runs in rep at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until October 3. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com
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