The Book Club
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Date Reviewed: 23/07/2016
by Irena Begelfor
In Roger Hall's The Book Club we witness the all too common conundrum of mid-life boredom. The scene is almost typical.
Deborah has the 50 something blues. She is a well-to-do housewife, married to a fitness-junkie lawyer who is preparing tirelessly for a marathon in order to prove he is still youthful. Their daughters have grown and left the family nest. This leaves her alone and yet together with her husband.
She escapes life by devouring books and one day joins her friend Trish's book club. The club changes her life when she invites Michael, a struggling writer, to talk about his book at the club. She is quite baffled to find herself in the midst of steamy affair and yet soon she gets quite used to it. Deborah shuts her eyes to Michael using her for sex, all-paid-for trips away, and food. She considers herself happy.
Amanda Muggleton impersonates each of the characters in the club as well as the two men in the play her husband, Wally and her lover, Michael. In one breath and without a break, Muggleton entertains the audience with amusing banter that has everyone in stitches. She springs to all parts of the stage and often lands herself in amongst the audience members having a te-te-a-tete conversation with just a few people around her. Muggleton brings the audience into her world, into her living room. She looks to people for answers, for support.
Muggleton captures the warm, the restless and bored Deborah through her matter-of-fact conversation and child-like nature. The stage is buzzing with different characters, accents, voices, and gestures - and they all live through the energetic Amanda Muggleton's in this 90-minute play.
The narration is punchy, it is light and it is sidesplitting funny Muggleton is a delight.