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Everlasting Rose.
The Review Page.

The reviews come from the play's revival in 1998, whilst the picture below features Bill Marsh and Charlotte Bronte Elmes in rehearsals from 1992. To see a cast photo from the 1998 production  - go to the Everlasing Rose Media Gallery.


"A unique vignette about the doomed, romantic attempt to defy the ravages of time, Everlasting Rose is set in the camper-home of Carney, an indefatigably cheerful Essex barrow boy The action concerns the return of his fourth wife, Tricia, and her meeting with his son, Nym, for the first time.

Each has their own behavioural trait forlornly designed to resist the inevitability of decay and provide their very own "everlasting rose": nerdish Nym is a compulsive washer ("you can't see the germs"), chirpy Carney is a serial husband (commemorating his trophy wives with dressed-up shop dummies) and nervy Tricia just can't seem to stop herself going back to her nylon-shirted loverboy.

Under Jenny Eastop's direction, Saul Cambridge as Carney, Sally Grey as Tricia and Peter Stead as Nym all respond instinctively to Upton's neurotically obsessive writing, while Beth Hannant's design turns the stage into a creepy plastic playpen."

Patrick Marmion - Evening Standard 28/5/1998


"Everlasting Rose... is an understated, intimate look at obsession and emotional hunger, with few fireworks.

Carney, a fading wide-boy entrepreneur, shares a caravan with his obsessive son Nym and the effigies of his last four wives in a coastal trailer park, joined intermittently by Tricia, his young wife. His running battle with wrinkles, hair loss and commitment and Nym's dust and dirt fixation establish a slowly ticking sense of entropy, disturbed only by Tricia's arrival and departure.

The play's exploration of the mental tics we adopt in the face of emotional turmoil is ably teased out by Peter Stead's loopy Nym. Sally Grey's Tricia is solid and convincing as a small-town girl taking stock, and ultimately taking action.  Perhaps the denouement jars as over-dramatic but it is still one of the best of this year's new play crop."

Andrew Stone - The Stage 11/6/1996

The Review Pages:
[Everlasting Rose] [Ashes and Sand] [Temple] [The Shorewatchers' House] [Bruises] [Stealing Souls]
[Sunspots] [People on the River] [To Blusher with Love] [The Girlz] [Know Your Rights] [Confidence]
[The Ballad of a Thin Man] [Sliding with Suzanne]


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