Barbara Pym’s novels are always particularly heart-warming, if a little sad. Author Samantha Harvey has successfully adapted the book of the same name to create a wonderfully intimate play, capturing the wit and poignancy of the original. The Arcola has succeeded in producing another top-notch evening.
The quartet in the title are four workers in an office in the early 1970s, the autumn is the time of life nearing their retirement. Though never described, their work is dull and repetitive. During breaks they chat, bicker and whine about their wretched circumstances in a sit-com of gloom which is both touching and hilarious.The daily grind seems worthless and when two of them retire no one is hired to replace them – the implication being that it has all been rather pointless.
The quartet is made up of two spinsters, a long-term bachelor and a widower, he being the only one who has had any sort of family life. None of them have living parents. They talk about summer holidays, shopping, operations, religion and ‘the worrying nature of life in general.’ The poignant meaninglessness and stifling atmosphere seems to have come straight out of a Samuel Beckett play.
Norman is a small man, angry about modern life, played with just the right amount of bile by Paul Rider; Edwin is his expansive counterpart, outwardly fulfilled by his religion which governs every part of his life according to the church calendar. Marcia is bitter and cancer-stricken, obsessed with her surgeon, arranging a pantry full of tins, and collecting a shed full of milk bottles. Letty doesn’t have much faith or passion for anything, feeling she has drifted from one rented room to another from ‘one windless place to another’; but she is a kind, friendly character, the glue that holds them together. All the cast are exemplary and hit the note of their characters perfectly.
Despite its simplicity, the themes the play tackles are serious issues – housing insecurity, lack of supportive families, lovelessness. It is a peek into the awfulness of mundanity, how people search for connectedness. This is a very touching play – you could end up in tears if it wasn’t so witty. Loved every minute!
Cast: Kate Duchêne, Pooky Quesnel, Paul Rider, Anthony Calf
Book: Barbara Pym
Play adaptation: Samantha Harvey
Director: Dominic Dromgoole
Set and Costume: Ellie Wintour
Running Time: 2 hours 10 mins incl. interval
7th May-13 June 2026