Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene adapted by Giles Havergal

‘I had been looking forward to my retirement from the bank for many years –

a life of relaxation and of spending time in the garden with my dahlias, but then my

Aunt Augusta was whisking me off on this whistle-stop journey across the globe –

Maybe it is time to shake of my conservative shackles and embrace the swinging 60's lifestyle.

Starring Gary Wilmot (Confusions, Me and My Girl), Clive Francis (Entertaining Mr Sloane, Longitude), Jeffrey Holland (Hi-De-Hi, You Rang M’Lord?), and Andrew Greenough (Glengarry Glen Ross, Blue Remembered Hills), this wonderful adaptation by Giles Havergal of Graham Greene’s rip-roaring comedy adventure will save all the cost of a holiday this year!

The novelist Graham Greene was also a playwright, but it is a stage version of one of his novels which is proving the most theatrically enduring of his works. Giles Havergal’s inspired adaptation of Travels With My Aunt originated at the Citizen’s Theatre, Glasgow, in 1989, and has since travelled the world.

Director Richard Baron has revived the show for a second time at the Nottingham Playhouse, prior to a four-month tour (next stops Brighton and Cambridge). This revival is a delight.

Four men enter in dark suits and bowler hats, carrying umbrellas. This is England in 1969, and retired bank manager Henry Pulling is devoting his retirement to growing dahlias.

At his mother’s funeral, Henry meets his elderly aunt Augusta, and soon she has led him from Paris to Istanbul to some very shady dealings in South America.

The genius of Havergal’s adaptation is that all four actors play the central character as well as a range of other characters. Sometimes they all play Henry Pulling at the same time, sitting down and crossing their legs with synchronised precision.

The cast is excellent, deftly moving in and out of a wonderful variety of roles. Clive Francis plays Aunt Augusta, a shrunken figure, with a quavery voice, a twitching mouth and waspish remarks.

Jeffrey Holland plays a CIA operative and his teenage daughter. Andrew Greenough plays cops, waiters, thugs and a salivating Irish wolfhound. The exuberant song-and-dance man Gary Wilmot plays a West Indian bouncer, Indian taxi driver and South American war criminal.

Greene’s novel is highly ambivalent, but the show leaves you with the enjoyable idea that inside every retired bank manager, there’s a Gary Wilmot struggling to get out.

Round the world the Greene way

Scores of characters cross the stage of the Theatre Royal during the two-and-a-half-hour performance of Graham Greene’s Travels With My Aunt. Some appear for seconds, others minutes and they include undertakers, customs officers, train crews, policemen, a Gestapo general, a war criminal, an American CIA agent and many others.

Along the way, we pass through France, Italy, Switzerland, Istanbul, Buenos Aires and the steamy, sleazy capital of Paraguay. And yet this is all done by just four actors. Four men who first appear as City gents sporting bowler hats, dark suits and umbrellas.

Travels With My Aunt was written by Greene in 1969 and he described it as “the one book I wrote just for the fun of it”. It concerns Henry Pulling, a retired suburban bank manager who lives only for his dahlias.

At his mother’s funeral, he meets his Aunt Augusta who becomes the catalyst that takes Henry away from his sad, lonely, dull life into a rich melange of entertainment and advantage. Along the way, he meets dope peddlers, spies, Nazi war criminals, corrupt policemen, stranded waifs and all the baggage that comes from his Aunt’s far-from-conventional life.

The novel was adapted for the stage by Giles Havergal and he and director Richard Baron have done a superb job. In their hands the play becomes a tragic farce and makes for a roaring night out.

The stars are Gary Wilmot, Clive Francis, Jeffrey Holland and Andrew Greenough, all familiar faces with plenty of experience between them. With just a gesture, they summon some splendid characters. All four actors share every character. Their timing is spot-on, the way they move from scene to scene is clever and intelligent and they deliver some of the best prose ever written in English.

This is writing that sparkles. The laughs come thick and fast and the one-liners are as good as anything by Oscar Wilde.

For all their talent, these four actors prove that with a good script, anything is possible and this totally unbelievable extravaganza of a tale will make you believe.

Do whatever you have to do to get a ticket, Travels With My Aunt is simply great.

A joyous journey in drag to Greene land

In adapting Graham Greene’s novel for the stage, Giles Havergal famously trisected the nephew, and though distributing a book’s narrative voice between several actors was not absolutely unknown, to distribute the narrators character as well was an astonishing notion back in 1988.

In this latest production, directed by Richard Baron, Clive Francis plays aunt as well as nephew, Gary Wilmot and Jeffrey Holland combine their share of the nephew’s role with those of the doomed lover, CIA spook, Brighton fortune-teller and the policemen of several nations, while Andrew Greenough plays assorted heavies and an Irish wolfhound.

The cast indicate the different characters by voice and posture alone, none of them ever changing out of the sober business suits- bank manager suits, it transpires- in which they are seen at the start, until the action moves to South America, and something less formal is required.

The story charts the immoral awakening of the nephew, Henry, prematurely retired from his bank and now sombrely growing dahlias in North London. “Dahlias?” barks Aunt Augusta (Greene’s impish nod to a more famous aunt of that name) and tugs him away from his plants to learn a new meaning of the word pot. He goes onto smuggle gold on the orient express before finding redemption in Paraguay.

Redemption does not take the usual Greene form, Christian interests being soft-pedalled almost to vanishing point- though a peripheral character does emigrate to South Africa, presumably so that Greene can pop in a reference to the “Dutch Deformed Church”. Redemption comes for Henry as he learns to live each day dangerously, without fearing that it may be his last.

Baron directs his cast to march on to the stage in line for their first entrance, prompting fears of a production over-influenced by the Ministry of Silly Walks. There are sillyish voices for the odder women Henry encounters, and a sense that the actors know what a joke a jokey voice can be.

But they judge it adroitly and the effect is joyous: Wilmot’s old biddie reading the tea- leaves, or Francis, frail and bent at the knees making her wishes known in a voice combining the quaver and the steely command. Holland, and actor of over 6 ft, is charming as three blushing maidens.

Greene contrives to make us feel that Aunt Augusta has the right attitude to life, while at the same time showing us her shocking disregard of conventional right. I don’t mean her smuggling a Leonardo across an awkward frontier but the casual acceptance of tyranny if it isn’t inconveniencing her.

He cannot have envisaged his heroine in a neat tie and bowler hat, but beneath the business suit, beyond the boundaries of gender, we see the unquenchable spirit of one of life’s survivors.

Magical ensemble suits you, sirs

As four bank manager-types in suits and bowler hats took the stage in a body it was clear this was going to be an imaginative production. For a start, which of them was going to play Graham Greene’s creation, Aunt August.

Clive Francis, Gary Wilmot, Jeffrey Holland and Andrew Greenough each played different aspects of the central character, the nephew Henry. So we had this diffident, conservative Englishman doubting, debating with himself and finally gaining understanding in quadruplicate. This was a marvellous device of Giles Havergal’s upbeat adaptation of the novel, retaining for the narrator a role distinct from that of Henry, the central character.

And how cleverly this able crew switched their voices, accents and language registers as they changed roles. To give an example, Gary Wilmot’s transition from red hot Yo, man! lover to the restrained English voice of the narrator.

It is unfair to single out one, because they were all equally adept at these slick changes. And the magic was in the ensemble. It soon became clear that while they could all play Henry, only Clive Francis was allowed to play Aunt August.

And how brilliantly he caught the mannerisms and niceties of an eccentric old English lady who has spirit. It was clear that most of the house, me included, were quite overlooking the fact that he was wearing a man’s suit. His performance was intensified in the second half, when the aunt is visibly older and frailer.

Andrew Greenough played some wonderful silly cameos, the best being the huge, eager dog with massive slavering tongue and misplaced amorous intentions. This was so funny it brought the house down.

For sheer entertainment, this is the best I have seen in years. Pure theatre at its best.

Paris to Paraguay and it's all First Class

Grab your passport and book a first class ticket for an action packed journey. Paris, Paraguay and Brighton are just a few of the stops en route in this witty stage adaptation of Graham Greene’s Travels With My Aunt.

Gary Wilmot, Jeffrey Holland, Clive Francis and Andrew Greenough are the talented bunch who between them play everything from mini-skirted girls and Scotland Yard detectives to CIA agents and even a rampant pooch.

The foursome merrily slip in and out of characters with ease charting the story of middle-aged banker Henry and his reunion with his long-lost and scandalous aunt.

It’s a masterly piece of theatre and wickedly funny as they paint a picture of naughty pasts and secrets.

This is teamwork at its best and a sheer delight to watch. Clive Francis dancing cheek-to-cheek with Gary Wilmot will certainly stay in my memory a long time. Well, travel broadens the mind.

Travel With My Aunt exploded onto the Belgrade stage last night.Novelist Graham Greene was also a playwright and screenwriter. Some of his work, such as The Third man and Brighton Rock, will live on via their excellent screen adaptations. But it's this stage version, adapted by Giles Havergal in 1989, which is proving to be one of his most enduring works.

With the aid of minimal props, inspired lighting and a box of different hats, just four actors portray more than 20 characters.

It's 1969, and retired Bank Manager Henry Pulling has dedicated his retirement to the cultivation of dahlias - yawn. At the age of 55, he's never married and the swinging sixties have certainly passed him by.But some much-needed excitement is injected into his life when he meets dotty old Aunt Augusta at his mother's funeral. She leads him on a global adventure which is riddled with plot twists and coincidence.

While all four actors play the central character, Clive Francis adopts a Miss Marple gait and saucy voice to play mad Aunt Augusta. Jeffrey Holland plays a sinister CIA agent and his coquettish teenage daughter. Gary Wilmot picks up the ethnic and accent-led characters. It's good to see that after years in musicals, he has not let his comic timing and mimickery skills slip. Andrew Greenough plays cops, waiters, thugs and a salivating Irish wolfhound.

It's an extremely physical production, executed at great speed. Pause to eat a sweet and you may miss the next line! 'Travels' is a perfect example of how successful a multiple-role production can be.

The secret of its appeal is its expert timing, high quality direction and the versatility of the performers.

If your idea of excitement is watching your prize dahlias grow, then Travels With My Aunt will put a few ideas into your head.

It is 1969 and four identically dressed men stand on stage in front of a projected backdrop of orange dahlias. Henry Pulling’s mother (or at least the woman he thinks is his mother) has just died and at the funeral he meets his dynamic Aunt August – superbly played by Clive Francis.

While a cremation is hardly a typically humorous scenario Aunt August manages to see the funny side, commenting that there is always the possibility that the doors won’t open.

Gary Wilmot, Clive Francis, Jeffrey Holland and Andrew Greenough play all of the characters between them – a superb feat which they accomplish astonishingly well. Each character has a unique physicality and voice ensuring a clarity I have never seen in previous productions of the play. Richard Baron’s direction is flawless and the staging is, crisp, symmetrical and highly effective. The actors timing is incredible, they more and gesture simultaneously in a way that Torvill and Dean might have been proud of.

This is a true piece of ensemble theatre. The actors working as a single unit, sometimes slipping seamlessly in and out of character mid-sentence to assume another role or act as narrator.

There is minimal use of prop s and yet they manage to create everything from a taxi cab to a cruise ship, with just a few simple sound effects and their own powers of invention.

As Aunt Augusta starts to widen Henry’s horizons the lighting gets noticeably brighter and more exotic. She manages to temp him away from Southwood to Brighton where they get their tealeaves read by Hattie (another superb characterisation by Gary Wilmot) we start to see how August likes to be ‘at the centre of devilry’ so much that you think she was talking about ‘Sodom and Gomorah not Lewes and Littlehampton’.

Part way through the evening I began to wonder where the actors hadn’t done a spot of method down at a local old folks home so realistic are their depictions of the elderly Aunt August and Hattie.

Through his Aunt Henry learns what it is to feel truly alive. He travels with her to Istanbul, smokes his first joint with the daughter of the head of the CIA on the Orient Express and learns of his Aunt’s chequered past. As she recalls her adventures with the shady Mr Visconti, the man she has been blindly in love with for as long as she has known him.

On several occasions August is questioned by the police (there is a fantastic portrayal of a Yorkshire policeman by Gary Wilmot) and Henry stars to re-asses his moral values as a result.

‘How could I have ever planned anything illegal’ she asks him incredulously ‘when I have never read any laws and do not know what any of them are’. It’s a point that Henry struggles to argue with.

Andrew Greenough is superb at playing the many bits parts that are needed for this piece. He does a particularly fine impression of an Irish wolfhound which ends up being flattened by a WW2 tank in Rome, in 1944.

Although he barely speaks a line he leaves an indelible impression on the audience, and seems to embody Stanislavski's impression that ‘there are no such things as small parts, only small actors’.

The contrast between the exotica of Istanbul and Henry’s dull Southwood existence are effectively portrayed through lighting. His dahlias have died, and the overall impression if one of a grey, lifeless existence. Graham Greene’s book has lost none of its sparkle since it was penned in the sixties. It vividly captures the era and is timelessly funny. Clive Francis as Aunt August has some great lines which he delivers superbly.

Speaking of Turkey, Augusta tells us ‘only just recently they executed a Prime Minister, we dream about it, they act’. There is also a sense of poignancy through the play as Henry learns more about his father and begins to wonder whether Aunt Augusta may actually be his mother. By the time this fast paced productions draws to a close the action has taken us from Southwood to Buenos Aires with a lot of other destinations in between.

The play ends as it began, with the actors in a symmetrical line on the stage, only this time they sport dark shades, sit in deck chairs and sip martinis. It’s been a mad journey but as the lights go down, and the actors quote Browning, we realise that in Henry’s case at last, ‘all is well with the world’.

The cast is excellent, deftly moving in and out of a wonderful variety of roles.

The show leaves you with the enjoyable idea that inside every retired bank manager,

Slickly choreographed with all four actors working in-sync with each other, making changing roles