NO SEX PLEASE,
WE'RE BRITISH
Blackmore
Players at the Village Hall
23.09.16
for Sardines
The intrepid
Blackmore Players – one of the best village companies in the area –
breathe new life into this old farce, penned back in '71 by Foot and
Marriott, not alas credited in the programme.
The critics
panned it then, but it did excellent business in the West End, and
has been popular with am-drammers ever since.
It's a huge
challenge, though, not least because an amateur group will lack the
rehearsal time – and the audience previews – when slapstick and
repartee can be honed.
And there were
some slow moments at Blackmore, with the all-important doors poorly
co-ordinated and actors waiting for an interruption.
But Andrew
Raymond's production was great fun, boasting some excellent
performances and a splendid set, with orange doors, lovely works of
art, and an efficient, if bizarrely placed, serving hatch. An
excellent period radio for Jupiter, but some other props failed to
convince: the super-8, the “1001 Perversions” and the camp snaps,
possibly due to a commendable ignorance of the ins and outs of
erotica.
Matthew Pearson
and Rebecca Smith were the hapless newly-weds who unwittingly get
mucky books and blue films sent through the post [very retro],
dressed respectively in a staid suit and a shorty negligée.
Visitors to their
love-nest over the bank include his snobbish mother [a lovely
character performance from Linda Raymond, even if several boroughs
removed from Chelsea], his pompous boss [Keith Goody], Superintendent
Paul [Ryan Stevens – is it me, or are policemen getting younger all
the time ?] and two oddly assorted good-time girls [Lisa Matthews
brandishing a rubber cudgel, and Ela Raymond, wielding a feather
duster].
But the comedy
gongs must go to Old Mr Haskell as the bank inspector with the Union
Flag flying beneath his jim-jams, and Young Mr Haskell as the chief
cashier – aka the Phantom Pornographer - who struggles to limit the
damage the tide of Scandinavian filth might cause to the National
Union Bank in this unnamed respectable Thames Valley town. Simon and
Sam caught the style, both physical and vocal, to perfection, sliding
sleepily down the wall, or losing the use of both feet. Sam, whose
truly hilarious performance included not one but two suicidal leaps
through the hatch, could happily have understudied Crawford at the
Strand.
The cast
thoroughly deserved the gales of laughter that greeted the better
jokes, and the whoops and cheers on their tardy curtain-call.
