Audiences had to wait just a little longer than anticipated for the 'letter' opening night of Droylsden Little Theatre's production of '84 Charing Cross Road' - but it was surely worth the intermission, writes Nigel Skinner.

As previously reported, leading lady Amy Evans was unable to step out onto the stage for the planned opening date on account of her taking one giant leap in her continued quest to become an astronaut.

That training took her to Germany but flying back the following day she landed safely to take up her role as Helene Hanff and it was duly curtains up and on with the show just one day later than planned.

The play itself is a heart-warming stage adaptation of the remarkable and real cross-Atlantic correspondence between New York writer Helene Hanff and the staff at the London Antiquarian bookshop, Marks & Co.

Originally a book written by Helen Hanff in 1970, it was adapted for the stage plus television and eventually became a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft.

The story traces the 20 year correspondence between the author and Frank Doel, chief book buyer at Marks & Co.

Hanff was in search of obscure classics and British literature titles that she had been unable to source easily in New York when she noticed an ad for the London bookshop in the Saturday Review of Literature.

She first wrote to the shop in 1949 and it fell to Doel to fulfil her requests.

Over the following 20 years and many letters later, a long-distance friendship and more gradually develops between the two, plus between Hanff and other staff members at the shop. 

Hanff would also send them Christmas packages, birthday gifts and food parcels to help with the post-World War Two food shortages in Britain.

Their letters included discussions about topics as diverse as the sermons of John Donne, how to make Yorkshire Pudding, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the coronation of Elizabeth II.

The play is entirely based on the letters and so for the two key cast members - Amy as Hanff and Ian Chatterton as Frank - it would, considering the diverse and academic nature of the content, be tough enough just to have to read them to the audience, let alone having to learn them weaved into script form. 

After seeing the play for the first time you could also be forgiven for thinking it might be easier to train to be an astronaut than learn the vast material referred to in Hanff’s letters.

But this is ultimately an emotionally moving story as the letters span the decades and the friendships between all of the characters - but specifically the main protagonists - grow and grow.

Witty, warm and well timed... the cast start their next search after the arrival of Helene’s latest letter.

It is a play too that is heart-warming, but also heartbreaking, leaving you to question the missed opportunities and just what might have been, could or even should have been - and relate that to our very own lives.

The slow build to an emotionally charged ending only works if you truly believe in the characters, so it was a true testament to Amy and Ian that many in the audience, myself included, were reaching for the tissues and wiping a tear from their eye come the final curtain. 

Amy impressively maintained her American accent throughout from Hanff’s apartment, effectively divided only by a slightly raised platform, defining it from the London bookshop on the stage. 

While centre stage in the store itself, Ian as Doel remained quintessentially English behind his desk on behalf, of course, of Marks & Co.

High praise must go to both for their characterisations - you truly believed in and cared about their lives from the start. 

You wanted to know more about them and their lives, and so awaited the next letter and then the next as you warmed to their own stories - and relationship.

But this play is not only about two people. Completing the shop staff were Mike Jordan as Mr Martin, Thomas Chatterton as Bill, Dot Hynes as Mrs Todd, Megan Weedon as Megan and Teresa Ogden as Cecily.

They too share in the letter writing saga as we gradually learn more about them all, their lives and loves, coming to care about all of their very different personal situations.

For a play which relies essentially on being able to hold an audience’s attention as the two key characters write letters to each other, there is a tremendous amount of movement in the shop, with comings and goings, book searching and sourcing, all linking in to the script itself and all requiring split second timing and high levels of concentration. 

All was performed effortlessly and naturally and the cast deserve credit for that. Amy as Helene moves about her small apartment naturally too, penning and typing away, receiving and discovering books while writing to demand more. Her move to a new apartment completed within the confined space was especially effective. 

As Frank and Helene become closer through their letters, there is one moment where they stand next to each other on stage at the edges of their own worlds, so very near they could almost touch through the dialogue in their letters alone, and yet of course, they were so very far apart divided by the gulf of space.

84 Charing Cross Road is a truly challenging play for all involved in its production, but one everyone at Droylsden Little Theatre, expertly directed by Steve Mallinson, can justifiably be proud of.

If there is ever to be a follow up we can only hope it might be Amy’s own letters... written from space.

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