REVIEW: Noises Off scores huge hit at Court Theatre
New group to the venue excels with professional production of hit comedy.
YOU have to have stamina and bravado to stage a farce. The staple ingredients for a good romp – according to veteran Brian Rix who was expert in the genre – was lots of doors slamming, trouser dropping, double entendres and..in the case of Noises Off..copious plates of sardines.
Michael Frayn's Noises Off has been dubbed the funniest British stage comedy of the modern age and there's no denying that. It wanders into the surreal when you have an amateur cast at The Court Theatre, Tring, playing a rep company who are struggling to make a drama out of a crisis.
But such was the confidence of the entire Berkhamsted Theatre Company, from director to set designer and all the cast, that there was never any doubt that it would be all right on the night.
The audiences at The Court Theatre were treated to an example of am-dram at its finest and most funny.
It's an incredibly, if somewhat repetitious play involving the efforts of a touring company in staging the fictitious farce Nothing On.
Will the leading characters remember their lines, will they turn up sober, will the props and scenery behave themselves and will petty feuds and love trysts stay backstage and out of the limelight?
Act one takes us through the final rehearsal, act two the performance and act three the same performance but from backstage.
This presents an enormous challenge for a small am-dram group in 1) keeping the story fresh and 2) coping with the practicalities of switching a huge set from front to back between acts two and three.
Such was the resourcefulness and commitment by the BTC that the extravagant country house set, complete with seven doors and various flights of stairs, earned its own round of applause from an enthusiastic audience. In fact, no disrespect to the incredibly hard-working cast, but Bob Randall's set deserved equal billing.
The play is fraught with dangers as the players tear up and down, negotiate trip hazards, juggle plates of sardines and hurl themselves, sometimes in a state of undress, through a myriad of doors.
But all excelled in pulling off a first rate comedy that delivered the gags, did the business and sent everyone home with a smile on their faces.
BTC's director Iain Fowles sat in the stalls next to Nothing On's libidinous and frustrated director Lloyd Dallas (actor Stephen Davies)and must have been pleased with the show.
Davies/ Dallas remained cool under pressure as his affairs took centre stage, old stagers Dotey Otely and Selsdon Mowbray (Maggie Harvey doing her best Kathryn Harrison, and Malcolm Foster as the senile and drunken veteran) were delightful and Colin Tovee as Gary Lejeune was exhausting and probably lost a few pounds by the end of the run as he played a lothario in the fake farce forced to play hide and seek with the set.
Robert Peacock and Gisele Yoh-Fowles were the rep company's stalwart thespians, the nice but dull Frederick Fellows and middle-aged glamour-puss Belinda Blair while Lisa Fitzgerald showed off her admirable assets as the play's sexy though dim actress Brooke Ashton.
Lucy Palmer excelled as the constantly harassed stage manager Poppy Norton-Taylor while odd-job man Tim (Kevyn Connett) reminded of Mackenzie Crook.
The Court Theatre stable of amateur companies continues to reinforce its reputation as a venue for excellence.
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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