Page 10 - David Burr Rooftops Magazine Winter 2017/2018

The cast of How The Other Half Loves. From left, Matt Cottle, Sara Crowe, Charlie Brooks, Leon Ockenden, Caroline Langrishe and Robert Daws
Embracing farce and
remembering Lovejoy
Caroline Langrishe on the brilliance of Ayckbourn and filming that antiques drama in West Suffolk
The face may be familar - Caroline Langrishe appeared in the locally filmed TV favourite Lovejoy - and now she has been back in the
region in a comedy classic.
More about her time playing opposite
Ian McShane’s loveable rogue later. This winter Caroline has been among the all- star cast of How the Other Half Loves, at Norwich’s Theatre Royal. Written by Alan Ayckbourn, it’s a story that follows three couples who find their social lives and love lives inextricably entwined.
Caroline Langrishe has been playing Fiona Foster “It is a fun role. She is a professional housewife . . . doesn't work and runs the house immaculately, like clockwork, looking after her husband and his every whim. All his shirts are ironed and meals are on the table at the right time.”
Her character gets rather too friendly with Bob Philips, played by Leon
Ockenden aka Coronation Street hunk Will Chatterton. The pair struggle to keep their canoodlings from their spouses played by The Royal’s Robert Daws and Charlie Brooks, of EastEnders, where she’s better known as nasty Janine Butcher. There is the added complication that a third couple are coming to dinner, played by Game On’s Matt Cottle and the comedy actress Sara Crowe, (who you may remember from the Philadelphia adverts), and the stage is set for an exquisite evening full of laughter.
“It is a quite extraordinary play as both households are on stage at the same time. In fact, at one point, you see two dinner parties happening on stage at the same time. Sara and Matt’s characters come to both so they actually swivel from one party to the other on stage at the same time too. The stage directions we have to follow are a play in themselves.”
Caroline says Ayckbourn has a knack for writing “domestic chat” that is
unequalled. ”Just reading it is like being in my own house as he captures the absolute trivia of domesticity. He understands the human condition brilliantly and he writes with enormous wit and irony. And he knows about this particular type of suburban world very well. It's very familiar.”
The play does have its challenges for the actors. “We have quite a lot of conversations with people we don't see, and we have relationships with people we don't look at either. We're spinning plates like Greek waiters in a restaurant!”
The mood of the piece took her back to the nuances of the sixties. She says. “It uses the words of that era. Needless to say I played the posh one - so, no surprises there - but I had lines like everything is ‘jolly’, ‘good’ or ‘super’ so it is very quaint in that way.”
Caroline has been working alongside a strong cast with at least one member she’s wasn’t unfamiliar with. “Funnily enough
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