Conflict and rivalries boil up as village pageant becomes a battleground

Adam Schumacher [centre] chairing the committee. Photo courtesy of The Bear Pit.

Ten Times Table by Alan Ayckbourn at The Bear Pit Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon from 26 February to 1 March 2025. A Second Thoughts Drama Group Production. Director Nic Walsh.

Review by Charles Essex.

A village folk festival is surely innocuous until Ray (Adam Schumacher), the chair of the organising committee, finds a history of a Tolpuddle Martyrs-style injustice which he decides would be a good theme for a pageant.  Little did Ray realise that he was lighting the blue touch paper…

Adam was superb as the rather grand self-important chairman.  His character was at the heart of this play, with a large amount of script.  He portrayed a wide scope of emotions as he tried to maintain order in the meeting, placate his wife Helen (Tracy Humphreys) whilst controlling her outbursts and managing opposing factions.  Adam was word perfect and maintained his Northern accent throughout.

Barry Purchase-Rathbone garnered laughs as Councillor Evans, the pedant on the committee, frustrating Ray as he pointed out spelling and grammatical mistakes in the minutes and bearing bad news as to why various ideas would not work or not be allowed.

The conflict arose between Eric (Steve Farr) and Helen.  Steve gave an excellent portrayal of Eric as the right-on, self-righteous, self-important, card-carrying Marxist, for whom everything epitomised the class struggle.  Georgina Monk lucidly expressed the vulnerability of Sophie who was enamoured by Eric, despite him having a partner to whom he returned, leaving Sophie distraught.

Gill Hines, Georgina Monk, Steve Farr, Emma Purchase-Rathbone. Photo courtesy of the Bear Pit.

 Malcolm Castle gave an excellent rendition of Lawrence Adamson on the committee, an alcoholic whose business and marriage were failing, and whose monologue was a master class in how to play a morose drunkard.  Similarly, Tom Purchase-Rathbone gave an excellent delivery as Captain Barton, clearly Sandhurst-trained and well versed in strategy in conflicts.

The prompt was called upon several times with opening night omissions so the flow of the play stuttered at times.  With the exception of Adam, some of the Northern accents fluctuated.  The sound quality needed to be improved as in the last act Steve was drowned out by the background noise of the offstage crowd and conversely the piano music was too quiet.  Director Nic Walsh marshalled the cast to make a decent fist of what is one of Alan Ayckbourn’s lesser known plays.

Ticket hotline: 0333 666 3366 or visit:  https://www.thebearpit.org.uk/whats-on/ten-times-table/