A Right Carry On up The Tyber

The action for this piece takes place in a radio station, however due to some unfortunate circumstances the cast and crew are no longer available, there is only one solution, go to the local pub and recruit “stand ins” from there.

It is the hardest thing to perform as someone who is not supposed to know what they are doing and to make it funny, many people think it is easy to go on stage “act daft” and everyone will love it – wrong!

To be able to act as though you do not know what you are doing you have to know exactly what you should be doing first before you can even think about how to perform it wrongly.

The members of NOMADS, Norton & Malton Amateur Dramatic Society knew exactly how to play their respective characters in order to get the most from this piece and get the laughs from the audience.

This play is about the murder of Julias Caesar on 15th March 44 BC, the “Ides of March” when Caesar was 55 years old.

Sherlock Holmes has been brought in to investigate this murder, step up Roger Kay whose job it was not only to investigate but also hold the whole play together which he did up to a point, however his fellow actors had other ideas.

Sarah Greenhough was co-host with Roger for this and also played the newsboy who told the audience what was happening as well as Laurenia, sometimes it was a little difficult to follow, not because of the actors on stage but because of the hilarious antics of the characters who the majority of the time had no idea themselves.

We all know Sherlock Holmes has a partner, Dr John Watson, step up Sarah Rutherford who was perfect in this part and was able to deliver the goods with ease.

One of the murderers of Caesar was of course Brutus and here he was portrayed as Elvis complete with jumpsuit costume, Barrie Elener was excellent and was able to get every bit of humour from this part much to the delight of the audience.

Playing the role of Octavia who was the daughter of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, was Annie Bannister who, again was able to get everything from her character to make it work.

Many of the cast members had to play several characters and Hermione Rutherford was no different, she delivered a superb Marilyn Monroe and also doubled up as Joey Tribbiani, anyone who doesn’t know who Joey is, he was one of the characters from “Friends” played by Matt LeBlanc, Hermione had these off to a T.

Helen King was also called on to play not one, not two but three very different characters, her main one being Cleopatsy, based of course on the Absolutely Fabulous character of Patsy which she performed to perfection, in fact if you closed your eyes, you would think it was Joanna Lumley on stage, Jimme Crankie and Boris Johnson all three bringing howls of laughter from the audience.

Anna Roberts was nothing short of outstanding in her characters, costumed half female and half male she played a hilarious scene portraying both characters, Editha and the taxi Driver.

Although not billed as a host Andy Studdart was totally in character as Lily Savage entering the stage to try to explain to the bewildered audience what was taking place.

As well as the actors being unavailable the crew was also indisposed for this play, therefore more people from the pub had to be called on to fill these roles too. As with many of the radio plays of the 50s and 60s these were performed to a live audience who were asked to laugh and applaud at the right time.

Leading the laughter and applause were Raz and Helen who I have to say did occasionally get it wrong which only caused more laughter and mayhem.

Again, typical of the older radio plays the sound effects were physically delivered by “walking shoes on gravel, using coconut shells as horse hooves etc. Delivering these effects were Alan Daft and Neil Payler, unlike today when it is via the press of a button or the slide of a fader, watching Alan and Neil I would think they were physically exhausted each evening from throwing themselves around the sound desk and falling off their chairs.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this hilarious piece which, judging from the applause and laughter was enjoyed by everyone of my fellow audience members.

A nice touch which the director introduced was the sponsors of the play who, a little like today’s commercial breaks, their businesses were projected on to the screen at the back of the stage, congratulations to Charlie Stockwell for having the vision for getting this from the page to stage..

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