The Argosy Players - On Approval

THE ARGOSY PLAYERS - LIVERPOOL

The Argosy Players in: On Approval by Frederick Lonsdale

Staged: 09 to 11 December 1954 at Crane Theatre Hanover Street Liverpool

During its 23 years in print, Martins Bank Magazine does its best to feature every single performance staged by the Bank’s various operatic and dramatic societies. From occasional offerings by the Manchester Players and the ArgoFor Players, to the full-blown musical extravaganzas staged by the Operatic Society, we can be certain that good coverage will be given, and that both bouquets and brickbats will be dished out in equal measure. Nothing gets past the Magazine’s theatre-going correspondents, and from poor make-up to an outstanding stage set or vocal performance, we are taken through reviews as if we had accompanied the writer to the theatre ourselves. In Spring 1955, Martins Bank Magazine reveals that it would usually review the Cicala and North Eastern Players on the FIRST night of production, and the Argosy Players on the LAST. This is probably more to do with geography than anything else, but seeing a play on its third performance means that many faults will have already had the chance to be “ironed out”. For whatever reason, in the case of “On Approval”, performed by the Argosy Players in 1954, the review was undertaken on the first night – 9 December…

We have commented before on the turn of events which usually forces us to visit the Cicala Players and the North Eastern Players on the first night of their productions, whereas we usually manage to visit the Argosy Players on the last night, when things are as near perfection as it is possible for them to be. However, on the occasion of the autumn production of Frederick Lonsdale’s play “On Approval” at the Crane Theatre, from December 9th to 11th, we were compelled to go on the first night, so that all have been viewed this season from the same standpoint. In the harsh world outside the sheltered walls of the Bank one sees a play and the critic vents his spleen upon both play and players on the strength of what he sees before his eyes.

Left to right:—Maureen Dempster, Jean Boothman,

Arthur Westall, and Peter Gordon

Our function is somewhat different, and in presenting our report we must take into account any difficulties which have beset production, the keenness of the players and the contribution they make to the social life of the Bank, while striking a happy medium between the parish-magazine-good-time-was-had-by-all type of journalism and fair and legitimate comment on the performance of those who have, after all, taken the public's money and must reasonably expect to hear some comment upon their efforts. This sounds as though we were leading up to a slashing attack on someone, but as there are one or two obvious comments which many people will make, we want to answer them here. Why did the Society, which has a fairly large number of keen amateur actors, choose for a major production a play which only used four of them? Why was this particular play chosen? The fact is that the producer, Mr. Sydney N. Rimmer, had a much more ambitious production in mind, a period play, which would have used a lot of people, and much time was wasted before the discovery was made that it couldn’t be cast. Then, with time running short, the question arose of finding a play which could be produced fairly quickly and Mr. Rimmer’s choice was this one. These things are very much a matter of individual taste, and we personally thought the play was so improbable as to be unreal and that the task facing the actors was, therefore, very difficult to surmount. Having said that we are very glad to be able to let ourselves go in praise of Peter Gordon and Maureen Dempster, on whom the main burden fell. Peter’s performance as the self-centred, complacent, blase member of the English aristocracy (surely of another generation than this!) was of a very high standard. Maureen’s portrayal of a shrew was excellent, just a bit too excellent for our liking as we know someone like that in real life and so the humour of it didn't appeal to us. This, of course, is just as striking a tribute to Maureen’s acting as was the comment of a girl (not in the Bank) who sat near us:—“I shouldn't like to meet her, she must be a horrid sort of person.” If we had known the girl, we would have assured her that no member of the company is held in higher regard and affection than Maureen. At the same time it is only fair to Arthur Westall to say that her performance was a little overdone, and the great strength of it made his task of persuading the audience that he was madly in love with such a shrew very hard to achieve. Frankly, he did not convince us, but that was partly the fault of the play itself and partly the producer's fault in having Maureen's part played with such power. Also, we felt that Arthur himself was not always entirely happy in the part. At times he was extremely good and obviously had the audience thoroughly behind him as, for instance, when he was allowing himself to be ordered around and made to perform certain menial tasks. When he finally asserted himself, the audience loved it. The palm for the most finished performance must surely go to Jean Boothman, who played the part of the friend of the woman played by Maureen. She looked so nice, her diction was so clear and her sense of fun which keeps bubbling through combined to present a most pleasing character. It was a really lovely performance. The parts were very long ones to memorise and there were commendably few prompts. To conclude, if we were Maureen Dempster, we would refuse to play any more parts of this sort. She has now had a long run of parts which call for a display of the less kindly virtues of the human personality and her ability and experience are quite equal, in our opinion, to mellower parts. There is no need to ‘type’ her.