Making its stop finally at the Royal Theatre in Bath, is Alan Aycklam’s highly anticipated 74^th production The Life of Riley. Though lacking the life it truly needed to win over audiences, this is a play that breaths an honest view on the devastating effects that time has on our lives.   

Aycklam tells the story of the man George Riley, an unfortunate character who is struck down by the news that one, he has cancer and two, that he has only months to live. However, instead of showing us how a cancer victim’s world is turned upside down, Aycklam has decided to focus on the emotional havoc this news has had on three couples. In fact we never actually see the infamous George Riley; instead the audience is left to paint their own picture of him, through the eyes of the other characters.

Opening up the play, the set is divided into four small gardens, each unique and representative of the couples class, Jack and Tamsin’s extravagant patio to emphasis “yes we are rich”, compared to Monica and Simon’s rustic farm yard. Eventually we meet the couples, whose lives are to be turned upside down; there’s the GP Colin and his domineering wife Catherine, the rich geeza Jack and the footballer’s wife style Tamsin, and Riley’s ex-wife Monica and her new man Simon. All completely different, yet they are united by one thing, George Riley.

In a final attempt to be with the ones he loves, George is asked to join the local amateur play with the other couples, as a way of taking his mind off his tragic inevitability. However instead of taking his mind off his remaining time, George’s presence among the lady folk takes their minds to their past encounters with George. Yet do we hear George’s side of the story, or his wants and needs? No. Aycklam’s idea of a non present George allows the audience to see the devastating effects that misery can have on a relationship. It is quite refreshing to look at the other side of the story of grief, we see the couples whose relationships were filled with cracks from the word go, crumble under the looming inevitability of how quickly life can be cut short.

As time begins to run out, so do the foundations of the couple’s relationships. The women cling and fight to hold onto the past desires they had for George when they are all invited to go on holiday with him, while the men look on deflated at having lost to a guy who can steal their women without even being on stage.

In the end despite their yearning for the youth they could never fulfill, and Aycklam uses Pink Floyd and lyrics like “remember when you were young” to emphasis that nostalgia. Our time in life is short, and we will experience good and bad, contentment and regret, we will touch people’s life and people will touch ours. It is this inclusive concept that made this play so bitterly sweet. Time is what makes us, and as Monica, (played by Laura Howard) quite rightly says “It’s not a DVD, its real life”, one must accept the past, live in the present and look forward to the future.

The Life of Riley, a play that does not tell the life of Riley, but how the life of this character has touched and affected the lives of others. Not a triumph for set design or a play that will blow you away with its wise cracks, but a play that will leave you with the poignant after taste of the ways that death brings us together.