Rehearsed reading review: The Wooden Meadow

I should be at the Finborough Theatre a fair bit in the next week, because as well as their regular Tuesday-Sunday show it’s also time for the annual Vibrant Festival of new writing, and for the first time in a few years I can make a couple of rehearsed readings I was interested in. First up Stewart Pringle, who was Artistic Director of the Old Red Lion pub theatre for three years, has written a play about a pub theatre that’s not too far from Sadler’s Wells and may or may not have a slightly laissez-faire attitude towards fire safety laws*. The protagonist of The Wooden Meadow has been running the place for a bit longer than three years – Jim (Ian Redford) has been there since at least the late eighties, when he had a few big successes with new writing, including the bizarre-sounding war epic the play is named after. Audiences have long since dropped off though, budgets are non-existent and the brewery demands heavy footfall or it’ll turn the space into a function room, but Jim ploughs on.

Anyone who saw Trestle won’t be surprised to hear that this is a pretty gentle comedy-drama that appears to be simply sketching a picture of the theatre and its regulars, but is slowly and understatedly building to a crisis as well. Jim leans heavily on his resident techie Jen (Hermione Gulliford,) who’s technically the theatre’s senior producer because he keeps having to give her new titles to stop her leaving; he’s also got a sounding board in barfly Hogan (Jack Klaff,) who also happens to be the playwright behind that big 1987 hit. Jim has to keep fobbing off Hogan’s attempts to give him an updated draft of the script, which doesn’t sound like it’s stood the test of time particularly well. The final character is Jim’s current nemesis, young director/producer/designer/everything else Dan (Joshua Ward,) whose attempt to stage An Inspector Calls at the unnamed theatre is hitting problems that might impact not just his career but the theatre’s future itself.

Fidelis Morgan has directed a reading with a lot of warmth to it that showcases a play that’s mostly very witty – although as well as a love letter to the theatre it also serves as a warning that the harsh realities of trying to make a living in it can turn love to hate. Given the response of the audience the play obviously hits on a lot of truths about trying to make art on a budget (although presumably not everything is drawn directly from experience, because I know Stewart and if running the ORL has turned him into a foul-mouthed ball of misanthropy he hides it very well.) Vibrant often serves as a testing ground for plays that end up getting full productions at the Finborough and elsewhere, and while The Wooden Meadow doesn’t feel quite 100% polished yet I can see it returning in some capacity. Yes, it is in many ways a theatre play full of inside jokes for theatre people, but in my experience the more specific a story is about its subject the more universal it ends up becoming, so I can’t see why that should prevent it from finding a wider audience.

The Wooden Meadow by Stewart Pringle was part of Vibrant 2019, which continues in repertory until the 4th of July at the Finborough Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes including interval.

*in fairness to Stewart, at no point while he was running the ORL did I ever feel I was sitting in a guaranteed death trap; which is not to say I never felt that way at other periods of its history