A trip to The Mill at Sonning is always an experience. Beautifully located and with a fabulously friendly bar, your ticket includes a two course buffet style meal with a selection of hot dishes to tempt the palate and puddings to delight. After the meal, and coffee if desired, it is of to the auditorium for the show - all without leaving the delightful old mill building.
The show in this case, was Noel `Coward's comedy of manners (or lack thereof) "Hay Fever". This is a play that depends less on Coward's wit and more on a group of off-beat and slightly mad characters. An over-the-top artistic and theatrical family, living in the country, have invited down friends - each has invited someone for the weekend without telling anyone else and a degree of mayhem ensues, with the maid providing a thread of comedy throughout.
As a play, I just don't find that it works anymore. We do not have these characters in real life anymore so the caricatures we are presented with simply don't raise the laughs the way that they would at the time and the consequently the situations aren't as funny as they should be. The production did try to highlight the madness of the central Bliss family but, for me, there was too little differentiation between them as they moved between their theatrical games and fantasies and "real life" - this is a small auditorium so continuous shouty delivery can become tiring to listen to.
Although the play wasn't to my taset, taken as a whole, the evening is most enjoyable and your mileage may vary ...
