Wit

Sale & Altrincham Messenger's Review

Top marks for Wit

By Rick Bowen

*****

IN life, Dr Vivian Bearing was as cuddly as a rattlesnake and had the interpersonal skills of your average border guard, treating her students with an attitude that verged on contempt. But, as the cancer really takes hold and her whole body is racked with pain, it's impossible not to feel some pangs of sympathy for the dying academic.

Ruth Evans gives a remarkable performance as Bearing in Wit, a moving, insightful and uncomprisingly realistic play currently being staged at Altrincham Garrick's Lauriston Studio. We laugh with her, we cry with her, we can't take our eyes off her as she brings every facet of her character to life.

This is a performance of a professional standard, which begs the question as to why, at the time of writing, Wit wasn't a complete sell out. If people are staying away because they think this is some sort of doom and gloom fest then they're way off the mark. Even the pay's blackest moments are laced with humour in a play that is as much about the resilience of the human spirit as it is about someone dying of ovarian cancer. So go on folks, take a brave pill and head for the Lauriston - this is a tough journey at times, but a hugely rewarding one.

Director Celia Bonner has created a production that holds the attention in a vice like grip and while there are outstanding performances from Richard Haynes as the nice but green Dr Jason Posner and Rosi Hunter as the good hearted nurse Susie Monohan, this is the Ruth Evans Show. What a catch she is for the Garrick. Brilliant.