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  The Argosy Players in: On Approval by Frederick
Lonsdale
Staged: 09 to 11 December 1954 at Crane Theatre Hanover Street
Liverpool
During its 23 years in print, Martins Bank Magazine does its
best to feature every single performance staged by the Bank’s various
operatic and dramatic societies. From occasional offerings by the Manchester
Players and the ArgoFor Players, to the full-blown musical extravaganzas
staged by the Operatic Society, we can be certain that good coverage will be
given, and that both bouquets and brickbats will be dished out in equal
measure. Nothing gets past the
Magazine’s theatre-going correspondents, and from poor make-up to an
outstanding stage set or vocal performance, we are taken through reviews as
if we had accompanied the writer to the theatre ourselves. In Spring 1955, Martins Bank Magazine
reveals that it would usually review the Cicala and North Eastern Players on
the FIRST night of production, and the Argosy Players on the LAST. This is probably more to do with geography than anything
else, but seeing a play on its third performance means that many faults will
have already had the chance to be “ironed out”. For whatever reason, in the case of “On
Approval”, performed by the Argosy Players in 1954, the review was undertaken
on the first night – 9 December…
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 We have commented before on the
turn of events which usually forces us to visit the Cicala Players and the
North Eastern Players on the first night of their productions, whereas we
usually manage to visit the Argosy Players on the last night, when things
are as near perfection as it is possible for them to be. However, on the
occasion of the autumn production of Frederick Lonsdale’s play “On
Approval” at the Crane Theatre, from December 9th to 11th, we were
compelled to go on the first night, so that all have been viewed this season
from the same standpoint. In the
harsh world outside the sheltered walls of the Bank one sees a play and the
critic vents his spleen upon both play and players on the strength of what
he sees before his eyes.
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Left to right:—Maureen Dempster, Jean
Boothman,
Arthur Westall, and Peter Gordon
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Our function is somewhat different, and in presenting
our report we must take into account any difficulties which have beset
production, the keenness of the players and the contribution they make to
the social life of the Bank, while striking a happy medium between the
parish-magazine-good-time-was-had-by-all type of journalism and fair and
legitimate comment on the performance of those who have, after all, taken
the public's money and must reasonably expect to hear some comment upon
their efforts. This sounds as though we were leading up to a slashing
attack on someone, but as there are one or two obvious comments which many
people will make, we want to answer them here. Why did the Society, which
has a fairly large number of keen amateur actors, choose for a major
production a play which only used four of them? Why was this particular
play chosen? The fact is that the producer, Mr. Sydney N. Rimmer, had a
much more ambitious production in mind, a period play, which would have
used a lot of people, and much time was wasted before the discovery was
made that it couldn’t be cast. Then, with time running short, the question
arose of finding a play which could be produced fairly quickly and Mr.
Rimmer’s choice was this one. These things are very much a matter of
individual taste, and we personally thought the play was so improbable as
to be unreal and that the task facing the actors was, therefore, very
difficult to surmount. Having said that we are very glad to be able to let
ourselves go in praise of Peter Gordon and Maureen Dempster, on whom the
main burden fell. Peter’s performance as the self-centred, complacent,
blase member of the English aristocracy (surely of another generation than
this!) was of a very high standard. Maureen’s portrayal of a shrew was excellent,
just a bit too excellent for our liking as we know someone like that in
real life and so the humour of it didn't appeal to us. This, of course, is
just as striking a tribute to Maureen’s acting as was the comment of a girl
(not in the Bank) who sat near us:—“I shouldn't like to meet her, she must
be a horrid sort of person.” If we had known the girl, we would have
assured her that no member of the company is held in higher regard and
affection than Maureen. At the same time it is only fair to Arthur Westall
to say that her performance was a little overdone, and the great strength
of it made his task of persuading the audience that he was madly in love
with such a shrew very hard to achieve. Frankly, he did not convince us,
but that was partly the fault of the play itself and partly the producer's
fault in having Maureen's part played with such power. Also, we felt that
Arthur himself was not always entirely happy in the part. At times he was
extremely good and obviously had the audience thoroughly behind him as, for
instance, when he was allowing himself to be ordered around and made to
perform certain menial tasks. When he finally asserted himself, the
audience loved it. The palm for the most finished performance must surely
go to Jean Boothman, who played the part of the friend of the woman played
by Maureen. She looked so nice, her diction was so clear and her sense of
fun which keeps bubbling through combined to present a most pleasing
character. It was a really lovely performance. The parts were very long
ones to memorise and there were commendably few prompts. To conclude, if we
were Maureen Dempster, we would refuse to play any more parts of this sort.
She has now had a long run of parts which call for a display of the less
kindly virtues of the human personality and her ability and experience are
quite equal, in our opinion, to mellower parts. There is no need to ‘type’
her.
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 M
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