A Laugh for Lit­er­ary Lov­ers 

Reviewed by Nadia Free­man

Richard Huber’s Won­der­ful opens with Lady Her­mi­one and her but­ler Roberts star­ing straight past the audi­ence.  We can not tell imme­di­ately what their rela­tion­ship is, if they are fond of each oth­er, if there is ten­sion, or how long they have known each oth­er. 

The set is bare­bones, with a chair, and a small drink cart to ensure Lady Hermione’s thirst is con­sist­ently sup­plied for.  This simple set-up leaves the audi­ence to focus on the core of the present­a­tion, which is the two char­ac­ters and the rela­tion­ship between them.

Lady Her­mi­one’s (played by Sarah Bar­ham) make-up and cos­tume indic­ate she is a mature woman set up with all the com­forts of any well-to-do per­son in Eng­land in the 1920s and has not had to worry about work­ing or eco­nom­ic struggles.  So much so that she chooses not to engage in con­ver­sa­tions about hard­ship such as the war.  And Roberts (Blaise Bar­ham) her but­ler while ini­tially main­tain­ing a form­al employ­ee demean­our with her (between their quick-wit­ted sequences of banter), we see in fact approaches Hermione’s needs with the intu­ition of someone who has known her a very long time.

This is a story about a rela­tion­ship between two people who have the intim­acy of know­ing each oth­er their whole lives but are con­fined by the soci­et­al roles they are expec­ted to play.  I was fas­cin­ated by the dif­fer­ent devices used to tell this story and scenes of import­ance, includ­ing repe­ti­tion of descrip­tions of scenery, objects and sounds.  As well as how the nar­rat­ive dipped in and out of time and place seam­lessly to a point where some­times I wasn’t sure of when the story was placed and how old the char­ac­ters them­selves were.  

Won­der­ful is won­der­fully funny.  Hermione’s char­ac­ter who finds most things ‘annoy­ing’ is excentric and play­ful, someone who has pur­posely decided to main­tain a child­ish facade that brings about some fant­ast­ic absurd­ist humour.  She and Roberts bounce off each oth­er in a way that through­out the course of the play bring us the audi­ence into the per­son­al jokes that they have shared togeth­er through­out their lives.  Some extremely funny moments are the con­tinu­ous lit­er­ary and film nods that are scattered through­out the script and the expres­sions of the cast at the scene ends.

It would be bril­liant to see this show incor­por­at­ing oth­er fea­tures such as sound design, as there are par­tic­u­lar ref­er­ences to sense ‘the sound of water’ that could help to bring an immers­ive exper­i­ence for the audi­ence.

Won­der­ful can be best described as com­fort and ten­sion swirled togeth­er in a marble cake bat­ter; a lit­er­ary drama that cov­ers war, sex, mar­riage and a reflec­tion on the con­straints of wealth.