The evergreen Alan Ayckbourn’s 75th play, written at the age of 72, turns out to be much prescient of the dark undertones of life in Britain today, coming as it does after riots, recession and the political upheaval of recent times. A neighbourhood watch committee set up in a leafy suburb amongst tinkling teacups and bourbon biscuits, morphs into the neighbourhood watch committee on acid, a vigilante group taking the law into their own hands perpetrating the very crimes they were set up to prevent.
The first quirk is that the play begins with the grim event that marks the end of it, the death of Martin, who is lauded with a lengthy eulogy from his sister Hilda, a rather disturbing committed spinster, leaving you wondering just how the comedy is going to creep into this. Martin and Hilda are a Christian middle class, middle-aged brother and sister who move into the Bluebell Hill development, looking for peace and quiet but find that instead of fairies at the bottom of their garden the menacing presence of a troubled housing estate looms from which not even their treasured statue of Jesus, or their garden gnome can protect them.
The part of Martin is tailor made for Matthew Cottle who is excellent; the likeable and bumbling Martin full of Christian and pacifist righteousness but underneath there beats the heart of a lion and the courage of a warrior. The rest of the committee press-ganged into service by the bustling Hilda (Alexandra Mathie) are Dorothy, the neighbourhood busybody (Eileen Battye), her husband Rod (Terence Booth), a security guard whose sympathies lie with the villains rather than the police, Gareth (Richard Derrington) a highly strung Welshman whose flighty wife Amy (Frances Grey) provides the gossip, and lastly belligerent Luther (Phil Cheadle) and his downtrodden wife Magda (Amy Loughton).
Frances Grey as Amy injects some much needed colour to the proceedings in the shape of luminously dyed red hair and figure hugging dresses to match, whilst Terence Booth as Rod distills the essential paranoia of the committee with his over-military approach to community policing in the shape of curfews, identity cards, and a set of stocks. Be prepared, the play has plenty of dark surprises, it’s as though a melting pot of perverse habits has been stirred and each character handed one as a gift from the devil.
Possibly showing middle England at its worst, (much is made of the Daily Mail reader syndrome) Neighbourhood Watch dares to speak where others only think. The very able cast make this somewhat cautionary tale compellingly watchable and entertaining on every level, just don’t set up your own neighbour watch committee you have no idea where it may take you!
Jacquie Vowles