Review: The Dresser at Harrogate Theatre

We've been at Harrogate Theatre and the Northern Aldborough Festival this week covering local arts. This article is free to read but we rely on subscriptions to survive. Please support independent local journalism and the arts by subscribing here. It costs as little as 14p a day.

Lauren Crisp is a book editor, writer and keen follower of arts and culture. She reviews theatre and cultural events in and around the district in her spare time. You can contact Lauren on laurencrispwriter@gmail.com. 

Ronald Harwood’s 1980 play, The Dresser, was inspired by his time as a personal dresser for a Shakespearean actor-manager during the 1950s. His fictional take transports us to World War Two Britain, where the Blitz is raging and air sirens wail.

The play opens to a theatre’s dressing room. In Harrogate Theatre’s intimate Studio space, the set is lovingly curated with wartime nostalgia, adorned with opulent costume and wigs; photographs line the walls, detritus fills the shelves, and a dressing table is warmly illuminated by a vanity mirror.

Titular dresser, Norman (Michael Garside), is busy preparing for that evening’s performance of King Lear. But his ageing master, the lead actor and manager of a touring Shakespeare company known only as ‘Sir’ (Chris Cowling), is nowhere to be seen, that very day having suffered an apparent mental breakdown.

With only an hour till curtains up, Sir’s wife and co-star, Her Ladyship (Judi Kenley), insists they should cancel. So does the no-nonsense stage manager, Madge (Clare Evans Argent). But Norman, fiercely loyal as he is to both Sir and the stage, insists all will be well: the show must go on.

At that moment, Sir stumbles into the dressing room, fragile and confused, on edge and quite clearly unwell. What ensues is a semi-satirical scramble to stage a play during wartime; a tragi-comic ode to the theatre, its realities and its backstage world; and to the – oftentimes unhealthy – bonds between those staunchly devoted to their craft.

Harwood’s expansive dialogue is no challenge for Harrogate Dramatic Society’s brilliant cast, who deliver it word perfect. Garside’s take on the dedicated yet long-suffering Norman is beautifully natural, handling a delicate balance of comedy and pathos with skill.

Norman soothes his egomaniacal master, Sir, whose elderly fragility and fearsomeness are deftly captured by Cowling, who visibly shakes as he applies his stage make-up, who sobs woefully into Norman’s shoulder, and whose temper is furious. Cowling’s voice booms, reaching heights often thunderous enough to make you jump.

Beyond this central duo, Her Ladyship and Madge have their own stories to tell, and Kenley and Evans Argent are wonderful to watch in these multi-faceted roles.

An intriguing character study, at once sharp and poignant, The Dresser is a love-letter to the craft of theatre, and the dedication and sacrifices it demands, as well as being a cautionary tale, speaking to the ultimate price of that devotion.

The Dresser is on at Harrogate Theatre until Saturday 27 June.