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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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End of the pier show Habeas Corpus
Hall Green Little Theatre
***** TAKE a lecherous doctor, his sex starved
wife, a hypochondriac son who collects diseases as others collect stamps
and the doc’s flat chested sister who is looking for salvation in a
D-cup and perhaps a family merely being dysfunctional would be an
improvement. Throw in, a pompous BMA president, spurned in his
youth by the doctor’s wife and out for revenge, an ex-pat newly returned
harridan who thinks the British Raj is alive and well or, at least
thinks it should be, who arrives with her rather shapely and, secretly,
pregnant daughter. Then add to the mix a vicar, would be suitor of
the doc’s sister, with a hobby of staring up young ladies’ skirts and
who has an insatiable appetite for knowledge, second hand, about sex and
finally we have a sort of travelling breast fitting technician. . .
don’t ask . . . and vanishing trousers. And that is without the patient who wanders in
and out trying to top himself in Alan Bennett’s farce from 1973. Set in Hove, the
gentle, posh bit of Brighton, in the 1960s, it is perhaps just as well
we have Christine Bland as Mrs Swabb, a sort of Greek chorus, at least
Ajax is in there somewhere, with a Hoover and rubber gloves, who
narrates as well as being the woman
what comes in and does for the randy
doc and his family. Bland gives a
wonderful performance with some impeccable timing and telling smiles and
glances. The doc, Arthur Wicksteed, is suave,
sophisticated and, bored with his wife and marriage, open to the merest
hint of an opportunity of a sexual nature – unless, of course, it
concerns his wife. Arthur, the would be 53-year-old stud, or in his c Wife Muriel is played in a full of life – short
on sex – manner by Ros Davies, on the permanent look-out for male . . .
company, while Ryan Knight is suitably wimpish as the permanently ill
Dennis, or is it Trevor, or Keith . . . it’s something like that. The
lad is only happy when he finds some fatal disease to suffer from. We have seen Rachel Louise Pickard grow as an
actress at Hall Green and she takes on the miserable, unfulfilled role
of the sister, Constance Wicksteed with some style. Constance is a
spinster (“No, I’m not, I am just not married”) who dreams of bigger
breasts and is sure if she could find a few more feminine inches Mr
Right would appear and sweep her, and her enhanced attributes, off her
feet. Mr Wrong meanwhile is Canon Throbbing, played
with some lovely touches by Al McCaughey. The Cannon seems to be
throbbing by name and nature whenever a female appears and is determined
to marry Constance, the love of his life, and, let’s be honest, probably
his only chance of nookie – and even then it’s a slim chance at best as
his hormones continue to race without any imminent prospect of relief. Enter Sir Percy Shorter, every inch the pompous
president of a professional body, in this case the British Medical
Association, though, to be fair, there are not many inches to actually
be pompous with in his case, a vertically challenged position which does
not sit easily with Sir Percy played with a deft touch by Daniel Robert
Beaton. Recently returned to Britain Lady Rumpers, played
suitably haughtily by Linda Neale, is a little put out at the state of
the old country and wants to protect her daughter Felicity, played with
demure scheming by Hannah Scothern, a daughter who is trying to avoid
being an unmarried single mum and marriage to a guaranteed soon to die
doctor’s son seems an eminent solution. BOSOM BUDDY When Mrs Swabb and Constance send off to
Leatherhead for a fiver’s worth of mail order bosoms including in the
price is a visit from the company’s fitter, a sort of bosom buddy, Mr
Denzil Shanks, played with a look of permanent bewilderment, in fear of
another sexual advance from Muriel and with no no trousers by Mike
Parker. While to brighten up proceedings we have Mr
Purdue, manic depressive and persistent attempter of suicides from
hanging, to pills to sticking his head in the oven, an attempt which
thankfully or sadly, depending upon your point of view, was less than
100 per cent effective as it was electric. Amid the mayhem we have Sir Percy attempting to
get Arthur struck off for his present sins, or to be more accurate,
attempted sins with a patient while Arthur can lay the same charges, in
this case consummated, at the door of Sir Percy for past sins under a
table in his consulting room during an air raid in Liverpool during the
war. Meanwhile Arthur and Muriel find themselves with
mutual adulterous holds over each other, Dennis is dying, again, but
marrying Felicity to become, although he doesn’t know it, a hopefully
dead dad, and Constance, sporting her new frontage finds a new life and
a new man. So everyone will live chaotically ever after. Director Jean Wilde has done a fine job in
keeping up a good pace in a play which depends almost entirely upon
timing. There is no set to speak off, just drapes to give easy access on
and off at the rear and wings and three chairs which means the words and
acting alone have to carry the whole performance and carry it they did. The play has some genuinely funny lines which are
well delivered by a fine cast in what is a witty, thoughtful, laugh a
minute romp. To 12-09-15. Roger Clarke
07-09-15 |
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ase
stood-up, is neither doting husband or father, he is not sure of his
son’s name for example, not that it matters as he doesn’t like him. He
is played with a nicely judged reckless manner and splendid indifference
to all round him by Steve Fisher.