Kevin Elyot was a prominent playwright and screenwriter. He is best remembered as the creator of the comedy Almost 20 years after the initial success of My Night with Reg, Elyot wrote his final play Twilight Song shortly before he passed in 2014. Three years later the play finally receives its premiere at the Park Theatre in North London.
Twilight Song is split over three different time periods, 1961, 1967 and the present day, although the setting is always the same sitting room of the same Victorian Villa in North London. In 1961, Basil and Isabella are married, have just moved into a new home and are expecting their first child. 1967 finds Isabella pregnant again but completely unhappy and frustrated in her marriage to Basil. In the present day, a now elderly Isabella lives with her middle aged son Barry. Both are left wondering how they have been left stuck together and how they would ever cope without one another. As the narrative switches regularly between all three time periods the audience sees how decisions in the past influence the events of the future.
Twilight Song has many recognisable traits of Kevin Elyot’s work. The dialogue is often absurdly funny but it drips with suffering too. Music features prominently throughout and the choices Elyot made are specific. Sometimes the music serves to immediately dictate the time period, at others to set the tone for the scene to come or to reflect on the scene just passed. The choices are varied, at times surprising and always perfectly selected.
The production also features a stellar cast under the expert direction of Anthony Banks. Call the Midwife star Bryony Hannah is surprisingly gutsy in the role of Isabella. Adam Garcia is a heady combination of charisma, arrogance and temptation as both Skinner and the Gardener. Philip Bretherton and Hugh Ross are equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking as Harry and Charles respectively. And as both Basil and his son Barry, Paul Higgins perfectly plays the characters who have the least influence over decisions made but feel the consequences most painfully.
There is a knowingness about Twilight Song being Elyot’s last play. With each scene set in the early evening, there are frequent references to sunsets and bird song. There is also a great deal of reflection among the characters; a desire to understand, even reach out to the past in an attempt to come to terms with the present. For a short play there is such depth. Elyot’s absence becomes ever more felt in the questions that will remain unanswered and the praise that will remain unreceived. Twilight Song is a parting embrace that will help to ensure the sun never sets on Elyot’s fantastic body of work.
It's great that London audiences, including me, are finally getting a chance to see Yank! the American musical by composer Joseph Zellnik with book and lyrics by his brother David. New Yorkers have been raving about it to me for years.