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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. |
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Fun, pace, laughter and a bowler hat Move Over, Mrs Markham Hall Green Little Theatre **** I HAVE never worked out why, but give a
po-faced gentleman a rucksack, a bunch of flowers and a bow tie, then
add a bowler hat, and whatever happens you feel you have to laugh. It happens here when Tony O'Hagan takes everyone by
surprise by arriving unannounced and on to an empty stage at a time when
laughter is not in any case in short supply. I'm sure it was the bowler.
It must have been. After all, it did Laurel and Hardy no harm. And so we find the inoffensive Walter Pangbourne
pitched into the improbabilities of a Ray Cooney-John Chapman farce,
written 52 years ago and something of a rarity these days but going
brashly unperturbed about the business of not giving a damn how it
presents homosexuality, all this time after the rest of the world became
obediently and militantly politically correct. Actually, it's interesting, because Adam Doherty is
required to project an interior designer of incalculable campness, who
is nevertheless irresistibly and repeatedly drawn to the possibilities
inherent in goosing the au pair (Josie Booth) and to enjoy being goosed
in return. Moreover, the flouncing man of curtains and colour
schemes is also required to declare that he is definitely not gay, which
is not what we've been thinking, even when we've somehow acclimatised to
his surprising relationship with the lady of the goose-exchange. But it's all good fun, with James Weetman and Amy
Leadbeter as Philip and Joanna Markham, the couple whose flat is the
setting for what are technically termed Goings-On, to which a whole
squad of slavering hopefuls are intent on contributing. He demonstrates
a fine voice and a splendid line in apoplexy, to which Ara
Sotoudeh gives loyal and long-suffering support as his publishing
colleague; she makes Mrs Markham an over-the-top citizen of chirruping
good cheer, bravely facing up to an accelerating avalanche of
sex-charged crises. Husband Philip is a publisher of children's books.
Panic is understandably on hand when Olive Harriet Smythe,
straight-laced children's author, turns up to propose entrusting him
with all her future output, at a time when people are assuming different
identities and young women in varying states of undress are popping into
and out of the bedroom, the bathroom and any available cupboard. As Ms
Smythe, Christine Bland plays a finely-controlled straight bat while her
hosts seek to steer her through the maelstrom. Linda Neale, as Linda Lodge, and Stephanie James (Miss
Wilkinson) contribute nobly to Graham Walker's production, for which
Edward James Stokes has designed a pleasing set of depth and character.
It does, however, need a bathroom door that does not unexpectedly come
open when it is supposed to be locked, as happened on the second night.
All praise, on the other hand, for the sometimes crucially-timed
doorbell which is inevitably a vital ingredient of the action. To
17.7.10. John Slim Box Office: 0121 707 1874 (restricted hours - or see website below |
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