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Time and the Conways and Other Plays (I Have Been Here Before, An Inspector Calls, The Linden Tree)

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The English author J. B. Priestley wrote a number of dramas during the 1930s and 40s, which have come to be known as his Time Plays. [1] They are so called because each constructs its plot around a particular concept of time. In the plays, various theories of time become a central theatrical device of the play, the characters' lives being affected by how they react to the unusual temporal landscape they encounter. [2] Joan Helford, a local woman. Pretty but unexceptional, Joan is a friend of the Conway family. She is in love with Robin, whom she idolizes. This attachment puts her in conflict with Mrs. Conway, who is jealous of Robin’s interest in her. Her difficult marriage only promotes her worst qualities, and she becomes a slovenly and irritable middle-aged woman. This makes the play strangely Chekhovian and Francesca Annis' optimistic but hopeless mother is straight out of the great Russian's stable. The actress is convincing in the part and does the most effective impression of Joan Plowright imaginable in portraying the older Mrs Conway. Time and the Conways was adapted in 1985 by BBC for television[11] with Claire Bloom as Mrs Conway, Phyllis Logan as Kay, Nicholas Le Prevost as Gerald, Geraldine James as Madge and Simon Shepherd as Robin.[citation needed] You might comment on similarities between Young Tom Gradgrind and Robin Conway, or a mixture of similarity and contrast between Mr. Bounderby and Ernest Beevers.

It is at this point that we learn, from a remark of Mrs. Conway's about flowers on the grave (put there by Alan), that Carol has died (two years after the events of Act One). Beevers, who has remained silent while Gerald has explained about the family's finances, now remarks that Carol was the best of the lot "worth all the rest of you put together"; though she despises Ernest, Mrs. Conway agrees with this verdict. Strømgren (who is remembered fondly by many Edinburgh Fringe-goers for pieces such as The Hospital and The Convent) is a very different proposition from Quijada.

A new BBC Radio 3 adaptation was broadcast on 14 September 2014 [13] with Harriet Walter as Mrs. Conway, Anna Madeley as Kay, Rupert Evans as Alan and Michael Bertenshaw as J. B. Priestley. [ citation needed] At the other end of the scale is her future brother-in-law Gerald, a heartless Northern capitalist and another character borrowed from Chekhov, whose awfulness is a tribute to actor Adrian Scarborough. The most poignant example is the youngest Carol, played to perfection by Faye Castelow, who is doomed to prove that only the good die young. The young actress has effortlessly stepped up from notable performances in the Havel Season at the Orange Tree and should be set for a sparkling career.

The play works on the level of a universal human tragedy and a powerful portrait of the history of Britain between the Wars. Priestley shows how through a process of complacency and class arrogance, Britain allowed itself to decline and collapse between 1919 and 1937, instead of realizing the availability of immense creative and humanistic potential accessible during the post-war (theGreat War) generation. Priestley could clearly see the tide of history leading towards another major European conflict as he has his character Ernest comment in 1937 that they are coming to ‘the next war’. After the war Priestley continued his writing, and his work invariably provoked thought, and his views were always expressed in his blunt Yorkshire style. Rupert Goold adds some subtle touches, including a dance with seven Kays and a final hologram that adds to a haunting atmosphere that eventually overcomes the clichés of character. These are probably inevitable when a writer is so set on following a carefully crafted plan to present his vital message. The play works on the level of a universal human tragedy and a powerful portrait of the history of Britain between the Wars. Priestley shows how through a process of complacency and class arrogance, Britain allowed itself to decline and collapse between 1919 and 1937, instead of realizing the availability of immense creative and humanistic potential accessible during the post-war (the Great War) generation. Priestley could clearly see the tide of history leading towards another major European conflict as he has his character Ernest comment in 1937 that they are coming to 'the next war'. Priestley applies this to the standard three-act 1930s boulevard entertainment, so that act two of Time and the Conways runs concurrently with act one (only in a different spatial dimension), while acts three and one are simultaneous. All that considered, you may conclude that the play finishes before it begins, and there is no need to go to the theatre at all - except that it would be a shame to miss some very fine acting.Priestley was somewhat obsessed by time, and tended to believe in a cyclic time, in the way of Hinduism. His plays where this can be best noticed are Dangerous Corner and I Have Been Here Before, both of which I didn't like. But in "Time & the Conways" this is scarcely noticed, while the story of the family destroyed by time, which we can see through Kay's eyes in the second act, is quite moving. Only Alan's words, speaking of the circle whose center is God, point at a cyclical view of time.

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