Stars explained: * A production of no real merit with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic which lifts theatre to another plane.
Half stars fall between the ratings

No Sex Please, We’re British

The Nonentities

The Rose Theatre, Kidderminster

***

It’s been 47 years since No Sex please We’re British first took to the stage. Although the play was steeped in controversy, co-writers Alistair Foote and Anthony Marriot successfully capitalised on the new era of the ‘permissive’ society.

With the UK having broken free of its Victorian principles through the swinging sixties and now everyone openly dealing with the fall out of our so called sexual liberation, it all presented some uncomfortable social issues for many to face.

Here set amongst the stiff collar world of banking, we have two newlyweds who accidently receive a shipment of pornographic material. They struggle to keep face and execute its secret disposal whilst embarrassingly having to deal with the process amongst their puritanical family and work colleagues.

Peter and Francis Hunter played by Callum Morris and Faye Stanton have taken the flat above the Bank where Peter works as a manager. The recently married couple are fresh to the world of co habiting yet the accidental arrival of a quantity of adult material at the bank’s location is even more difficult for them with Peter’s mother, played nicely by Sue Hunt, coming to stay with them for the first time.

 peter and franis

Peter and Francis Hunter played by Callum Morris and Faye Stanton

The pairing of Morris and Stanton had great fun and exerted a fair amount of energy into their parts as the web of awkward scenarios progresses.

Bank employee Brian Runicles is the unwilling partner in crime tasked unfairly by the Hunters to aid them in the disposal of increasing deliveries of dubious photos, magazines and films. Bob Graham added an exuberant and manic quality to his performance, protesting continually through his growing uneasiness at having to be an accomplice to a crime he was never a part of.

The formality of the banking world was played by Tony Newbould as Leslie Bromhead the bank’s senior official and David Wakeham as Arnold Needham the bank’s area inspector. Mr Needham has the delightful experience of being assumed a `customer’ when two ladies of the night played bravely in skimpy lingerie by the glamorous Beth Grainger and Courtney Anslow, arrive at the flat misinterpreting the Hunter’s request to the suppliers of the adult books as being `unsatisfied.’

mum

Sue Hunt as Peter's mother

Patrick Bentley added a touch of `the plod ‘to the chaos as Superintendent Paul always appearing when the situation least needed him to be there.

Like all good farce the production takes a while to get going till the scene is set and although some of the dialogue was a little hard to hear early on the cast grew in confidence as the play continued

Plot wise It all seems hardly worth raising a sweat about today so to enjoy this amusing farce you need to time travel a little and appreciate the under the counter mentally that was associated with any form of the sex industry back in the early seventies.

It’s all fast paced and manic and if you put the plausibility aside, it’s a fun packed timepiece that still will get you laughing. To 03-02-18

Jeff Grant

30-01-18  

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