REVIEW: TWINKLE by Philip Meeks at Drayton Arms Theatre 17 – 21 January 2023

‘... brief, funny, sad and beautifully and simply presented, the twilight of a lonely man who exemplifies the sadness of the clown.’★★★

The best pantomime dames have a streak of malevolence beneath the charm and the bonhomie, and Harold Thropp, alone in his dressing, lets it run full throttle as he gets into cossie and slap for the next show.

Harold (Dereck Walker) has seen better days, as have his dress and his career, and finds himself relegated to Dressing Room 5, beneath the reality TV star, the soap star and the singer who take star billing these days. Harold’s old school, after all, and the times, they are a-changing.

Philip Meeks’ 2000s play is old school, too, harking back to the even earlier days when dames like John Inman, steeped in the craft, done their time touring the provinces with suitcase and wig, began to be superseded by a telly name for the poster. The short, funny, script mines the pathos of Harold’s decline, and avoids the usual static pitfall of the one-man show by having plenty for Dereck Walker to do as he unloads the suitcase (and, this being pathos, his memories) and lovingly prepares wig, dress, boots and bloomers before dressing.

Walker’s technically clever performance is precise in finding both Harold’s prissiness and his bitterness at the turns his world has taken – finding his way into both panto and a relationship with another man in the pre-Woolfenden report days when homosexuality was still illegal, suffering as his Eric’s family cut him off without a penny or an invitation to the funeral.

The script has more laughs in it than he manages to land, though, with his missing, a bit, the Dame’s trick of connecting fully with the audience, making them gleefully complicit in his malevolent act of revenge on a difficult co-star he despises.

And perhaps things have changed again since Meeks wrote the play at a time when panto seemed doomed to gentle decline – these days old school Harold wouldn’t be sharing the stage with third-rate daytime TV presenters, but replaced himself by the likes of Ian McKellen and Julian Clary, this year’s two biggest West End dames.

Twinkle’s brief, funny, sad and beautifully and simply presented, the twilight of a lonely man who exemplifies the sadness of the clown.

Photo credit: Nick Brittain photography

TWINKLE by Philip Meeks at Drayton Arms Theatre 17 – 21 January 2023

Directed by Robbie O’Reilly

Presented by LAMBCO Productions

Reviewer: David Weir (playwright)

David’s plays include Confessional (Oran Mor, Glasgow) and Better Together (Jack Studio Theatre, London), both award winners.