Quartet in Autumn review

The idea that they are all waiting for something that will never happen conjures the spirit of Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon (“It’s difficult to keep on,” says Letty), while the mystery of what their work actually entails is benignly Kafkaesque. 

All this is staged with the utmost simplicity, lights dimming and rising to change scenes or indicate the passing of time, until Marcia and Letty take their retirement envelopes and they go out for a very awkward lunch. Never having fraternised beyond the office, they are at a loss as to how to communicate in the world outside. All four are heading towards the twilight of their lives and wondering what happened to them, and what they achieved, if anything. 

The women, in particular, are in worse shape than the men. Bedsits and uncertain tenancies, few friends or relatives and, in Marcia’s case ill health, a possible mastectomy and an obsession with her consultant – all contribute to the feeling that their inconsequential lives are drawing to a close. Yet such is the strength of Pym’s writing and Harvey’s adaptation that there is rarely a moment when sadness is overwhelming. Fragments of almost surreal humour divert attention away from the abyss – Norman humming the Van der Valk theme tune, which is picked up by the others, a funeral wreath passed from hand to hand, a debate on the components of chicken forestière – ameliorate the miasma of sadness and colour the characters with a defining eccentricity that never descends into caricature. 

The performances are superb, although the women have the better roles. Marcia’s decline is the most dramatic, while Letty’s late conversion from hopelessness to a late-flowering optimism is wholly convincing. Subtle, absorbing and deceptive.

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