(seen at the press performance on 7th September 2026, by invitation)
It is a beautiful room, the Grand Saloon Bar.
High, vaulted ceiling with three glorious chandeliers. Luxuriously thick rugs on highly polished floor.
Thick blue or golden armchairs pulled up to dainty tables at which even daintier sandwiches and pastries are served (the chocolate brownie is divine).
So how does it, at the loud arrival of a steam train, become a dowdy railway station buffet in 1936?
This is the magic of director Tam Williams’s production of Noel Coward’s “Still Life” – the short play which became the eternally breathtaking film “Brief Encounter.”
Much of the film can be seen in this play. Doctor Alec (Alasdair Craig) and unfulfilled housewife Laura (Rachel Pickup) meet when she seeks help in the café, and he removes coal grit from her eye.
The dialogue between them survives almost verbatim in the film, and remains thrillingly intimate even in this vast room.
What Craig and Pickup build at their table (“Romeo and Juliet” sneer the staff as their Thursday assignations become regular), is credible and heart-wrenching.
He is simply enjoying the attentions. She is yearning for something, anything, to lift her mundane conforming life. Both know that nothing will truly happen, yet continue to test boundaries.
Noel Coward’s mastery is in the contrast around them. Myrtle (Elizabeth Elvin) runs the buffet. Forthright in her views, typically pre-war casual about food hygiene (avoid the baked goods basket) and wise.
Ticket collector Albert (Antony Jardine) is determined to take their relationship further. Coward allows it, a stealth razor of class critique.
Waitress Beryl (Seren Sandham-Davies) may be too young to become involved in love, but with a terminally ill mother, she already understands life – and the value of a little bribery.
In Williams’s production, Sandham-Davies’s keyboard, trumpet and vocal skills are well used to provide beautiful musical interluded of well-selected Coward pieces.
Sandham-Davies, Antony Jardine and Elizabeth Elvin are also called on to play multiple small roles, all worth looking out for. Most notable are Sandham-Davis’s drunken soldier, Jardine’s dodgy peddler and Elvin’s key turn as Dolly, Laura’s friend who unwittingly ruins a final goodbye.
Played on four sides of the enormous, highly polished bar in the centre of the room, it is surprising how quickly we accept time warping illusion.
The costumes help the vivacity, but the cast keep the performances intimate rather than trying to expand themselves into the space.
Patrons will find their tables being polished, eyed for occupancy and tidiness. Characters slide in and out of the door as station buffet users will, and the staff chat in their workplace.
If there is an issue, it is with Graham Weymouth’s sound design. Some early dialogue on the other side of the room is lost, and the monkey found itself leaning back to hear from a speaker in a corner behind it. A limitation of the space rather than skill, which will no doubt be resolved during the run.
“Still Life” is an apt title. There is still life despite disappointment, dignity in work. Life still goes on.
Even more, this “Still Life” captures a moment in British history, a single snapshot in time.
Happening in three dimensions, unfolding in a time bubble for us at the Theatre Royal, this is no cheap themed dining show.
A multi-sensory, thrilling experience, nostalgic theatricality in its prime.
5 stars.
“Still Life” runs until 12th September 2026. See ltheatres.co.uk/whats-on/still-life/.
Photo credits: Rachel Pickup, photo by Andreas Lambis. Used by kind permission.
All other photographs: by theatremonkey.com. Copyright theatremonkey.com. Not for reproduction without permission.