‘An Awfully Big Adventure’ by Beryl Bainbridge     (1989) – 205 pages

Beryl Bainbridge writes a novel about a theater troupe. What could be better?

In ‘An Awfully Big Adventure’, fifteen year-old Stella Bradshaw gets a job working as an assistant stage manager for the Liverpool Repertory Company in 1947. This is long, long before the #MeToo movement, and I’m sure if someone were to write this sex comedy with dark edges today, Stella would have to be at least eighteen.

Most authors today would portray a fifteen year old girl as a fragile innocent in this dangerous world. Instead Beryl Bainbridge refreshingly portrays our main character Stella as a fifteen year old girl who can take care of herself.

The director of the play, Meredith, knows just what happens inside these theater troupes.

“Not for the first time he thought how monotonous it was, this unerring selection of inappropriate objects of desire.”

Speaking of inappropriate objects of desire, Stella falls hard in love with Meredith.

“When he spoke to her she could scarcely hear what he said for the thudding of her lovesick heart and the chattering of her teeth. Often he told her she ought to wear warmer clothing.”

Stella has fallen for Meredith in a full-on crush, but she can’t figure out why he is more interested in the other stagehand Geoffrey.

While at the theater, Stella gets some first-hand explicit lessons in sex education from some of the males she comes in contact with. She also sees the sexual undercurrents which swirl through all of the people who are there at the theater. The sexual activity among and with the theater people shades this young-girl-growing-up comedy with its darker aspects.

There are also affairs between the other actors and actresses. The actress Lily says about one of these affairs:

“He doesn’t want her,” squealed Lily, “because he’s got her. He’ll soon change his tune if he thought she’d lose interest. They’re all the same. You tell her from me.”

And then then there is the arrival of Irish lead actor P. L. O’Hara who is to take on the Captain Hook / Mr Darling role in their Christmas production of Peter Pan. O’Hara is a famous actor now middle-aged, a rogue known to have slept with many of the actresses of his time.

“He had the audience in the palm of his hand,” he cried. How they hated him. Those flourishes, those poses, that diabolical smile…the appalling courtesy of those gestures.”

A community theater group is an ideal setting for a Beryl Bainbridge dark comedy. Bainbridge had her own experiences working in the theater, and ‘An Awfully Big Adventure’ is a fine theater novel.

Grade:   A