Brief Lives, Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond

ON ENTERING the auditorium, the sight of the set immediately promised an authentic journey back in time.

The Georgian’s little stage was transformed into a cozy room with a blazing brazier at its centre and oak panelled book-lined walls. Solid wooden furniture, writing quills, pewter tankards and earthenware pots added authentic clutter.

The half open leaded window let in lively sounds from the streets of London signalling we had stepped back several hundred years into English history.

Neil King, playing the historical author John Aubrey (1626-1697), emerged as an old man from a cabin bed behind a curtain. Proceeding to dress himself in tattered robes, and partake of breakfast of stale bread and warm milk, he shakily conveyed that he intended to regale us with "real" tales of social history – later to be published as Brief Lives.

Titbits such as Sir Walter Rayleigh’s broad Devonshire accent and Shakespeare’s father being was a butcher were sandwiched between tales of ordinary people, who in seeking "cures" for various ailments often ended up curtailing their lives.

There were times when the distinction between rambling senility and learned old man were a little blurred. Playwright Patrick Garland may have been making a subtle point about the reliability of historical sources, but in a one-man play the risk is that the audience is occasionally unsure whether it is the character or the actor stumbling over words and struggling to recall what he is about to say next.

This was a relatively brief show, comprising two acts of just 40 minutes each. Despite being an entertaining and atmospheric evening, I later found myself struggling to remember the actual details of the stories I’d heard. I remain unclear whether to attribute this to unmemorable content or to the premature memory lapses of my own advancing years.

Christina McIntyre