OLD Herbaceous is a one man show presented and acted by Giles Shenton based on the novel by Reginald Arkell and adapted for the stage by Alfred Shaugnessy.
It is a play that focuses on the pathos and quiet victories of small, everyday life.
Herbert Pinnegar is the head gardener for Mrs Charteris – a role that has been both his employment and his life’s work.
Being taken as an unpromising school pupil, he has a gift for plants and for gardening. It is this that the rich and upper class Mrs Charteris takes a massive chance on.
This is a story set in simpler times. In lesser hands, the writing and the performer could have been trite and overly sentimental. Here though, it isn’t, and the tragedies of the time, the late 1930s onwards and class distinction are studied, but not dwelt upon.
Life outside of the manor doesn’t really intrude. There is a trip to London and some memories of lost love, but life is set around the house and the garden.
Although not a lot happens, we see the trajectory of Pinnegar’s life, from schoolboy with a bad leg to head gardener – and even time spent as a judge for the Royal Horticultural Society. There is a sense of life unfolding and of a simpler time.
The ending of the play sees the house sold and the death of Mrs Charteris following her mental and physical decline.
The whole play is set in Pinnegar’s potting shed. As he tells us about his life, the audience develops the sense that as quiet and undemonstrative as it has been, it has nevertheless been a good life.