Barbara Pym is a writer whose popularity has shifted like... well… the seasons. From her six marvellous, natty social-commentary novels in the 50s, to her 70s revival - almost a Booker Prize winner - and two more besides. A few radio plays and a documentary-style TV show were the only things to touch on this woman’s elusive œuvre. Until now, that is.
Who better to do so than an actual Booker winner, Samantha Harvey? The seemingly “unadaptable” nature of her novels - the subtlety, social tension and minutiae - doesn’t put off the creative team, with Dominic Dromgoole in tow directing, the dream team promise to wrestle this enigmatic book and push it out into the harsh stage lights.
With one of the smaller casts, and the most critical reception (although Excellent Women (1952) is maybe more famous), Quartet in Autumn can be easily trimmed to a four-hander. Taking place mainly in a 1970s office, we meet a deeply religious widower, Edwin (Anthony Calf); a woman teetering on the edges of retirement and change, Letty (Kate Duchêne); Marcia (Pooky Quesnel), also almost retired - an odd, outplaced and private woman; and Norman (Paul Rider), a snarky, dissatisfied and lonely man.
In two hours, not much happens - but everything happens, you know? Minuscule interactions, missed opportunities, shared cups of coffee, the shock at the rise in milk prices, loneliness and failed connection. In short: British people rattling around together every day, yet awkwardly, metaphorically and physically, bumping elbows.
Ellie Wintour has the desk block sunken into a blood-red carpet, with a doll’s house upstage left for an important erstwhile character. Everyone is perfectly decked out, even down to Letty’s infamously “jovial” French navy suit. Skylar Turnbull Hurd throws every spotlight and lighting state he has to try and break up the static-ness, but it sometimes feels as though he’s leading the actors around the periphery of the chairs and desk, not the other way around.
The chatter is nonstop, but all embody the outmoded (even for the 70s) banal prattle with gusto. Harvey’s faithful and precise adaptation really conjures the novel afresh on stage. A soundscape of internal monologues takes a hair’s breadth of choral timing to get right, consistently achieving Pym’s knack for portraying the unthought-about and unwanted.
Yet the play hits the same issue I struck with the book. In comparison to her earlier novels, Pym is trying something new: male characters, a 70s setting, senescence as a theme. Her eye and needle-sharp wit remain, but her view of female ageing specifically, and life after retirement, is at odds with contemporary and modern ideas. Even with the upward flick of the final line to console, the overall effect is pretty dreary. Despite her efforts, the stifling climate of 1950s never quite leaves the tale - our tea goes cold in our hands, and the clouds gather in despite the promise of sunshine.
Quartet in Autumn
Until 20 June 2026
Arcola Theatre
24 Ashwin Street
Dalston
E8 3DL
