Review: The Drawer Boy at Clwyd Theatr Cymru

Nov 17 2008 by Francesca Elliot, Chester Chronicle

THE DRAWER BOY/Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Mold, until November 29

REVIEW/by Francesca Elliott

A PACKED audience at Mold’s Clwyd Theatr Cymru were treated to an emotional night with the theatre’s latest production of The Drawer Boy.

This is the Canadian play’s Welsh premier and runs at the theatre until November 29.

Set in rural Canada in the early 1970s, the play follows the arrival of Miles, a young actor, at a remote smallholding run by two middle-aged farmers, Angus and Morgan.

It quickly becomes apparent that everything is not right with Angus, and it is soon revealed that an accident during the Second World War has left him with severe memory loss.

City boy Miles moves in with the two men with the intention of learning about farm life for his new play.

However he is soon put to work, and his constant ineptitude quickly causes friction between him and the gruff Morgan, which provides the play with it’s elements of comedy.

Throughout the first half of the performance, Angus is kept happy through repeated retelling of his and Morgan’s youth in England during the war, where it is said the two of them met their wives.

Morgan tells Angus that their wives died in a car crash soon after arriving in Canada, but refuses to take Angus to the grave site.

Alarm bells begin ringing with the audience when the apparent fabrication of Morgan’s story becomes clear and we are left wondering as to the exact whereabouts of the two women.

Tense scenes follow as Miles confronts Morgan and the truth is soon revealed.

The standard of acting from the three characters was very high, and the attention of the audience was maintained throughout the majority of the performance, with only the odd scene a feeling little long-winded.

There were more than a few hints of Rainman and Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, throughout the play, but which was on the whole, very good.

The rural farm setting was effective, and many members of the audience commented on what a powerful evening they had had.