The Tales Common Ground Told

Posted on 8th October 2025

With Common Ground Theatre, you get one of two things – a frequently earnest and invariably erudite adaptation of a classic or an utterly bonkers mash up of myth, legend and slapstick comedy. I can think of no other company that swings back and forth, from tragedy to comedy, with such unapologetic aplomb. The Tales Our Mother Told is yet another string to their bow. An original story of some depth from the febrile mind of writer and director Pat Wymark, it is arguable a synthesis of those two extremes.

The tale of two brothers, each dealing with their mother’s dementia in their own way, was told with a seriousness of purpose. There were still laughs to be had, but they were rooted in reality, helped in no small measure by excellent performances from Ben Elder and Douglas Clarke Wood. Had the play focused only on the previously estranged siblings coming to terms with the death of their mother, I’d have still thought it an evening well spent. This was, however, a Common Ground production, and they were never going to be content with that. Leaving Barry and Dennis sitting on a bench, the play took a handbrake turn, plunging the audience headlong into a fever dream of frenetic madness. Julian Harris popped up, armed with accordion, as narrator with a song up his metaphorical sleeve. Douglas Clarke Wood flexed his comedy muscle, going all out Terry Jones in his portrayal of the archetypal grandmother. Elder followed suit in the role of a returning soldier, rescuing his relatives from Julian Harris’s stomach. Need I say, you really had to be there?

I do have to say that it was the grounded drama of sibling rivalry that really held my attention. I wonder if Wymark should have greater confidence in her ability to conjure genuinely affecting drama. Perhaps she should occasionally resist the layers of complexity and humour that have increasingly become the company’s hallmarks. That said, the company’s command of those signature elements was impressive, and her fiendish imagination is seemingly without limits. This was a bold, brilliantly strange, entry in Common Ground’s ever-growing body of work, and was greeted with appreciative enthusiasm by the Corn Hall audience.