In the three years since his death, Kevin Elyot’s work has enjoyed a renewed success. The Donmar production of My Night With Reg received a stunning West End transfer, and his first play, Coming Clean, will soon be revived at The King’s Head Theatre. But before we go back to his first, we are treated to his last. Twilight Song is receiving its long-awaited premiere at the Park Theatre.
Barry, a confirmed mummy’s boy in his fifties, is showing an estate agent, Skinner, around the family home, while his mother attends a weekly appointment in Dunstable. Over the course of this first scene we discover Barry’s life is filled with regret and that Skinner has to make ends meet by selling his body. It’s a wonderfully funny scene, filled with good old-fashioned humour and innuendo.
Except for one more contemporaneous scene, the rest of Twilight Song is set around the time of Barry’s birth, and focuses on his parents; Isabella and Basil. Add in an uncle, a family friend and a blackmailing gardener, and a very intricate plot begins to develop. This is where the writing excels, because so much is intimated with barely a word spoken.  The gardener, for example, needs only to stand at the open door, for a few seconds for us all to understand his relationship to Isabella.
The transitions from one scene to another are equally as intriguing. In one, with Tchaikovsky blaring it looks positively cinematic, like an old Audrey Hepburn movie. Although at first, I found it a little self-indulgent as it’s not been written that way, I soon succumbed to appreciate its beauty.
The cast do an exceptional job of bringing Elyot’s words to life. Paul Higgins as Barry/Basil is particularly strong, and Adam Garcia definitely shines in the couple of scenes in which he appears. Bryony Hannah’s Isabella is delightful, although the older version of the character lacks some of the matriarchal gravitas one would expect.
While the first scene feels like classic Elyot, the rest seems new and fresh, providing satisfying reveals but retaining a little mystery. It’s certainly more restrained than My Night With Reg or Coming Clean, but Anthony Banks has directed this play with a real tenderness, it’s an absolute joy.
Like this year’s productions, Twilight Song begins at the end before taking us back to the beginning. Weaving a sophisticated plot, this is theatre as it should be, David Sloan has lovingly produced a very fitting tribute to Kevin Elyot, which has been performed and staged with true elegance.
