Review of Visitors performed by Shoestring Theatre at Stamford Arts Centre

Four differing perspectives on life are being portrayed with compassion and skill through Shoestring’s current stage production, Visitors.

The Barney Norris script shifts easily between light and dark moments and evokes some delightful imagery, beginning with elderly couple Edie and Arthur reminiscing about their younger days together.

Facing the Stamford Arts Centre audience in their armchairs, their conversation is unselfconscious and intimate - as one first-night theatre-goer observed, ‘a gentler version of Giles and Mary from Gogglebox’.

Edie (Lynn Kirk) and Arthur (Kevin McCabe) are waiting for two visitors to their remote farmhouse home, their son Stephen (James Duggins) and recent graduate Kate (Stephanie Thompson-Collins), who Stephen has arranged to be their first live-in carer.

Several of life’s dilemmas are explored in the play, which was chosen by Shoestring director Roger de Toney.

The first is how the arrival of another person can affect a relationship - the impact Kate might have on their self-contained daily routines is anxiety-inducing for Edie and Arthur.

This theme returns towards the end of the play, when Stephen, now middle-aged, suggests he return to his childhood home.

Whether or not life has taken the right path is another thread running through the play, and each character has the opportunity to indulge in and express that inner dialogue.

Only Arthur, who farmed because it was his father’s occupation, and fell for Edie at a young age, seems unquestioningly satisfied with his lot, while Edie rues not having more children, Stephen is forced to question his own family life, and Kate, just starting out as an adult, hasn’t a clue where she is heading, although it looks unlikely to involve her law degree.

Heavy on seated dialogue and introspection, the play may not impress those who prefer larger helpings of plot and action.

Audience members of a certain age might also wince at the degeneration of the older couple in front of them, with all the associated indignities.

But setting aside the views of the stony-hearted, and those who can’t bear to face ageing’s harsh truths, the outstanding acting by the four cast members makes this a production well worth seeing.

Each actor has a huge number of lines to deliver, sometimes as quickfire dialogue, other times as longer reflections. They achieved it with barely a syllable out of place.

Moreover, each character became wholly believable and the effect was to draw those around them into their world.

Visitors is being performed at Stamford Arts Centre Theatre nightly until Saturday, March 16.

Tickets are available from https://www.stamfordartscentre.com/ or 01780 763203. They are priced £12 and £10.

Have you watched Shoestring’s production of Visitors? Share what you thought in the comments.