Cecily, Reggie and Wifred, all famous opera singers in their day, are now spending their golden years in a comfortable retirement home for musicians.
Marmalade loving Reggie takes life very seriously. He is proud of the fact he is the only one who has paid for his lodgings. Cecily an ardent listener of music, totters through the French windows to spy on the gardener whenever he takes off his shirt. Wilfred is a roué with a one-track mind; more like a well fertilised dirt track. The three of them rub along pretty well, sharing their musical memories, until this comfortable existence is thrown into confusion by the arrival of Jean, another opera singer, once married to Reggie. After a succession of failed marriages, she has now fallen on hard times. She manages to completely disrupt the equilibrium of the other three, by still acting like the diva she once was.
Each year the Home celebrates the birthday of the great opera composer Guiseppe Verdi. In times gone by the four singers were well known for performing Verdi’s Rigoletto. Trouble beckons, tempers are lost and sparks fly when Jean refuses to take part in a revival of their famous quartet from this opera.
Quartet asks us to join in a celebration of artistry but is it even possible there could be one more show stopping finale?
Paul Taylor, writing in the Independent, describes the play as an ‘unashamed – no shameless,’ vehicle for four feisty old troupers whose task is to make us laugh a lot, sigh a little and cry a little, as we are taken into the bittersweet world of facing up to age and mortality.