One hotel suite. One old fashioned, camp villain. Three women, in three different points in time. But sometimes two are in the same time. And at one point all three are, but one doesn’t belong. Or is it two? Hang on, let’s travel back to the beginning.
The revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s Communicating Doors, on now at the Oxford Playhouse, is a time travelling romp of a comedy thriller. Dominatrix Poopay Desir is called to a hotel suite, and ends up witnessing an elderly man’s confession that he had his two wives murdered by his assistant Julian (an excellently creepy Ben Jones). Julian returns to the room and tries to kill her too, so she escapes through the (simply and effectively staged) communicating door. As she pops out the other side she finds herself in the same room, twenty years earlier.
Here she meets the elderly man’s second wife Ruella, on the night she is to be murdered no less, played as a wonderfully no-nonsense, practical heroine by Liza Goddard (yes indeed 1990s children, Liza Goddard from Woof! Didn’t everyone want to be able to turn into a dog when they were eight?). In a wry nod to the ridiculous set up, Ruella explains that everything does make sense, it just has an “unfamiliar logic”.
The tone of the whole play is balanced to perfection, the comedy and thrills enhancing each other. But what drives the play is its heart. Ayckbourn said that he believes that your own good fortune in life often resides in the people you meet along the way. The relationship that grows between Poopay and Ruella is very moving, as they both learn how to be better people from each other.
My only complaint, if I’m being very picky, is that there’s an anachronistic reference to videos in 2010. Who watches videos in 2010? But saying that, if the only complaint in a play involving murderous plots and time travel is about a throwaway reference to videos, I think it can safely be said that the unfamiliar logic is in very good working order. And it’s got Liza Goddard in it! From Woof!! That’s surely worth the price of a ticket alone.
Original review here
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