A Fine Bright Day Today       by Philip Goulding

(2f 1m)

       

"Beguiling production with a message that everyone deserves a second chance. Philip Goulding's play is an enticing piece of understated but effective writing." (The Guardian - Last Chance to See)

      

A Fine Bright Day Today tells the story of Margaret, a trawlerman's widow, who still lives in the coastal cottage she shared with her husband. When her grown-up daughter, Rebecca, decides it's time to move on and move in with her boyfriend, Margaret is certain that she is staying put in the small town that represents both her past and her future. But the arrival of Milton, an American artist looking for lodgings, tips her world upside down. Is Margaret ready for new horizons and new beginnings, or is she too old to change and really live again?

  Christine Cox as Margaret and Robin Bowerman as Milton in Philip Goulding's A Fine Bright Day Today at the Oldham Coliseum, directed by Kevin Shaw, designed by Alison Heffernan. Photograph by kind permission of Ian Tilton. 

Oldham Coliseum Theatre 2011

Since the death of her trawlerman husband, Margaret has developed obsessive rituals, including unplugging all unused electrical items, replacing lids, and closing cupboards in case a protruding drawer upsets the balance of the universe. Such routines enable her to maintain the insularity of her life, but do not equip her to deal with the sudden appearance at breakfast of a big, bristly American in his boxer shorts. Milton – raised in the mountains and seemingly descended from a bear – is a landscape enthusiast who has followed his hero, the fictitious painter Franklin Bowden Broome, to a small fishing town. Grieving Margaret has not been looking for a lodger, still less a lover. But there's something about the genial, weatherbeaten interloper that intrigues her, despite the fact he drips all over her carpet. Philip Goulding's play parallels the true-life curiosity of Winslow Homer's sojourn in the Northumberland village of Cullercoats, deftly dramatised last year by Shelagh Stephenson's A Northern Odyssey. But whereas Homer was an inscrutable, ascetic figure, Milton is all ebullient bonhomie, despite nursing a private grief of his own.Kevin Shaw's beguiling production features excellent work from Christine Cox's Margaret, whose constipated expression unclenches as the genial charisma of Robin Bowerman's Milton gets to work. Samantha Power makes a marvellously provocative catalyst as Margaret's daughter, who fearlessly removes lids, open drawers and dismisses her mother's Daily Mail as "a kind of danger-of-death manual" for neurotic housewives. It leaves you with an optimistic sense that everyone deserves a second chance at happiness, allied to a slight anxiety about whether you turned the gas off before you came out.  (The Guardian)

 

Love in middle age can be tricky. Playwright Philip Goulding has created a touching new take on it in A Fine Bright Day Today. We’re in a seaside town. Mum is Margaret (Christine Cox) – widowed by the death of her trawlerman husband when daughter Rebecca (Samantha Power) was a baby – Margaret has fought her way through and made a go of it. Into her life, thanks to some enterprising fixing by Rebecca, comes a middle-aged American called Milton (Robin Bowerman). He’s an artist fascinated by the sea…but he’s got hidden depths. The play is about the fears and joys of a new relationship, and all the risks that seeking the unknown can bring. It’s also about all the wounds that time has never healed – beautifully explored at the close of the first half. There are themes hanging around the periphery – artistic integrity, post-industrial decay and regeneration, asylum seekers – and there’s a sub-plot about Milton following in the footsteps of a previous-generation painter, which lends another aspect to the story. But at the centre of it are two people, and Cox and Bowerman bring all their experience to make them live. Power gives a totally believable performance, too. Shaw has directed with a sure hand, and Alison Heffernan’s set is functional and true. Composer Alan Edward Williams has written an atmospheric score, featuring Jennifer Langridge’s cello, with a September Song kind of melancholy that fits the play beautifully. (Manchester Evening News)

Robin Bowerman as Milton with Samantha Power as Rebecca in Philip Goulding's A Fine Bright Day Today at the Oldham Coliseum, directed by Kevin Shaw, designed by Alison Heffernan. Photograph by kind permission of Ian Tilton. 

                

Philip Goulding’s quietly reflective and dignified, poignant three-hander. An enigmatic love story, it is certainly compelling under Kevin Shaw’s taut direction, which brings out all its quirky vitality and extraordinarily powerful evocations. (The Stage)

      

Kevin Shaw snappily directs Philip Goulding’s three-hander about two lonely people and a daughter. It’s ultimately a feelgood evening. What’s more, it’s a romance not about the thirtysomething daughter, Rebecca (Samantha Power), but about her mum Margaret (Christine Cox), and the lodger, US amateur painter Milton (the excellent Robin Bowerman). Romance among cinquagenarians; what’s the world coming to? The setting is coastal: mum lost her trawlerman husband years before and her life has been on hold since. She’s become comfortably miserable. Into this drops, courtesy of the daughter, lodger Milton, a lonely American on a painting holiday. Milton is the sort of guy you instantly like, and then get to like even more. There’s a lot going on in Bowerman’s friendly face, and it illuminates the play. Samantha Power, likewise, is charming as the daughter; outgoing, feisty and likeable from the start. Like all good romances, there’s a revelation about the visitor and as for the ending, well, I did say this was a feelgood show. (Oldham Chronicle)

The play has tender moments and funny moments. Christine Cox as Margaret and Robin Bowerman as Milton achieve a couple of wonderfully sympathetic and moving performances. (British Theatre Guide)

A Fine Bright Day Today is a good piece of writing – a rather charming family love story full of warmth, humour and the sound of waves crashing on the shore. It deals with aging, loneliness, loss and expectation in a simple but affecting way. From the beginning you know it’s all going to turn out well in the end, but you’re still relieved when it does, such is the unlikely allure of Goulding’s convincingly flawed characters. Christine Cox and Robin Bowerman give great, compelling performances. (The Public Reviews)

A trawl for love worth catching.…a thread of humanity runs throughout as you root for a happy outcome, though it remains a cliffhanger until the very end. (Reviewsgate)         

 

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