Gertrude's Secret: The Oxford Playhouse

4:04pm Wednesday 6th August 2008

Ragbag: my dictionary defines the word as "a collection of widely different things". The description fits Gertrude's Secret, a collection of ten monologues written by Benedick West. Presented by Pure Bedlam Productions and directed by Andrew Loudon, the monologues staged vary from performance to performance, so you may not necessarily see all those described below.

On press night, a selection of widely different characters was on display. "If I can be a bit confidential," began Maureen (Angela Lonsdale) in the first sketch, "our relationship hasn't quite got off the ground." It transpires that Maureen is following, maybe even stalking, some hapless man. Quite different is posh Candida (Anne Bird), who has both a gardener and a Lithuanian au pair. First you are led to believe she is having it off with the gardener (there is talk of an erection by the raspberries), then you discover that the au pair has awakened her lesbian tendencies.

But it was Gertrude herself that a packed Playhouse had come to see: Prunella Scales appears for only five or six minutes, but she establishes Gertrude as a lonely figure, hovering by the phone, waiting in vain for her daughter to call on her birthday. While she's waiting, she quietly tells us how important it is to keep our surroundings absolutely spotless. Then Gertrude's awful Secret is suddenly revealed.

Among the men, Desmond (Andrew Loudon - the director sometimes appears in the show) has sold his print business ("no one produced a better sheet of four colour litho," he proclaims), and has decided to open a chain of luxury sex shops. Poignantly, he is now confined to an electric wheelchair following an accident, which has affected his own performance in the bedroom department. Most effective - although the character will certainly annoy some people - is Sion Tudor Owen as an apartheid-era South African gay, whose overbearing self-regard has taken a tumble: beginning with 20 servants (he boasts) in Durban, he finds himself reduced (in his view) to taking aerobic classes for the elderly in Staines.

Playwright West provides quite a few laughs along the way, and also successfully points up the bitterness harboured by some of his characters. He is also good at leading you in unexpected directions. But the overall effect is scrappy, because some of the monologues are much better written and acted than others - on opening night the story of a ten-year-old girl left stranded in a seedy Amsterdam hotel room was almost entirely inaudible. A ragbag indeed.

Gertrude's Secret continues at the Oxford Playhouse tonight and tomorrow. Tickets: 01865 305305 (www.oxfordplayhouse.com).

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