Entertaining Angels
By Richard Everett
Directed by Alan Strachan

Richmond Theatre 5th – 10th Oct

Penelope Keith returns magnificently and triumphantly as Grace in Entertaining Angels to Richmond Theatre. She received superb support from Benjamin Whitrow as her dead husband Bardolph, Polly Adams as her sister Ruth, Claudia Elmhirst as Sarah and Carolyn Backhouse as her daughter Jo. Paul Farnsworth deserves a special mention as the designer of the set, as indeed do all the crew. The set is stunning and received due applause as the curtain rose last night, but it was illuminated still further by this play and the acting.
This is a return to Richmond for this production and a very welcome return for it is a very fine piece with the very real problem of being a good person living a Godly life in a real world of corruption.
Bardolph, the village vicar has died leaving his wife, Grace to continue her life bitterly unfulfilled and closeting a deep secret. But she is not the only person with a deep secret and each indiscretion is slowly and meaningfully revealed.
Female clergy are still viewed as novelty in the Church of England despite the huge number of women involved in the ministry and mission of the Church. It is still much easier to accept the Vicar’s wife as that unpaid and often overworked extra member of staff that does the general dogsbody role of making the tea, baking the cakes, answering the telephone and being handy with the hankies and helping to mop up the mess that occurs in life. So after 40 years of doing just that, Grace, in her bereavement, has to cope with her new role in life and also the intrusion of Sarah into what will be her house. No wonder she seeks solace in the spirit/ghost/angel of her departed husband, Bardolph. But Sarah is not the new Vicar’s wife, she is the new Vicar.
We all carry emotional baggage, dark deep secrets that we all would love to keep hidden. What is surprising is how easily we unburden ourselves to total strangers! Men have an advantage, for often their baggage does not carry the same physical consequences that it may for women. Affaires do sometimes result in unwanted pregnancies, abortions and mental trauma with unimaginable consequences. But the hardest part is often the untold lie, the lie of deception. This is what Grace has to contend with, a sister who has deceived her, a husband who has betrayed her and the grief of her own loss, no wonder she ends up seeking solace in the memories of her husband. This is a triumph for Penelope Keith and well worth revisiting.
Reviewed by Evan Rule