Review: Last Tango In Whitby, Rowntree Players, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 3-4

2:09pm Friday 3rd October 2008

By Charles Hutchinson

THE Indian summer has packed its bags, but what’s this? “We’re all going on a summer holiday,” chirrups Saint Cliff to set in motion Mike Harding’s hearty comedy, Last Tango In Whitby.

Whitby, not Paris, you will note. This is more northern bread and butter than Marlon Brando and a pack of butter in Bernardo Bertolucci’s notorious 1972 movie.

Everything has its place and this gentle comedy for the third age has found its home at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, the kind of comfy theatre that Harding’s pensioners would enjoy.

We join these good Yorkshire folk on their annual trip to the East Coast, seated in rows on a bus being driven by the one young’un among them (played by the chameleon Leon Thompson, who chalks up eight roles, a fierce female hotel manager and fancy-dress dog among them).

John Fryer’s ever-talkative, ever-joking Henry sits at the front, leading the banter, distracting the phlegmatic driver with his self-appointed superior knowledge of the roads. Fryer has plenty of comic moments, his experience guiding his characterisation always the right side of Henry becoming irritating.

Harding is generous in spreading the comedy between the cast of 12, and John Hall’s direction ensures that Barry Benson’s Jimmy, Juliet Waters’ Jessie, Jill Pearson’s Kathleen, Rachel Parkinson’s Joan and Caroline Heppell’s Maureen all lap up their time in the spotlight, dancing moves and all.

Indeed, the director makes play of the tango in the title by having cast members move scenery in time to the music.

Claire Horsley and Leanne Rivers bring a youthful playfulness to playing the hotel’s waitresses, while Hall’s rotating set designs of the hotel interior and Whitby sands (echoing Tom Purvis’s famous coastal poster art) are both effective and evocative.

The “last tango” refers to the newly blossoming relationship of recentlywidowed Pat (Jeanette Hunter) and hotel entertainer Phil (Martyn Hunter), who is trapped in a moribund marriage to Edna (Brenda Riley).

Their sense of pathos, combative humour and autumn romance brings a glow to the appreciative audience.

Last Tango In Whitby, Rowntree Players, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, performances tonight and tomorrow at 7.30pm.