A Sideways Glance
Information
- Date
- 25th November 2016
- Society
- Catworth Amateur Theatrical Society (CATS)
- Venue
- St Leonard's Church Catworth
- Type of Production
- Review
- Director
- Andrew Moore
I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing a proper review style show for a long time as they seem to have gone out of fashion in the last few years. What a refreshing change to finally come across one again. What few there are around are normally the preserve of television and mostly performed in a manic, manner with volume being the main point of delivery. This however was a much more gentile affair in the old-fashioned sense of the word. At first this took a little time to become accustomed, but once I did I was soon into the show.
With one or two exceptions, this was entirely a home-grown script from the writing team of Andrew Moore, Pippa Ellson, Ken Payne, Julie Daniel, Jeff Knott and Brenda Stewart and was both an affectionate look back and a satirical look at the year 2016, which will probably go down in history as the most bizarre and unpredictable year in modern times. I’m told as event unfolded several rewrites and alternative endings were needed. Truth as we all now know turned out to be far stranger than fiction!
The setting was St Leonard’s Church, Catworth, with a raised stage placed in front of the alter and the alter area itself curtained off to provide changing area and wings. With lighting by Paul Murphy this was simple but effectively done.
I said it was a home written affair, but we started off paying homage to that late, great comedian Ronnie Corbett, with a sketch from the Two Ronnie Show, ‘The Two Ronnies Courtroom Quiz,’ which got the audience warmed up and brought back a few memories.
We moved on to a rather clever sketch about the absurdity of the terms of golf, which I thoroughly enjoyed as coming from a golfing family I never really thought how absurd they really were. Very clever and a great idea. From there we had sketches about The Doctor’s Strike, The US presidential election and Brexit, complete with voting slips for the audience to decide where or not Catworth should remain part of the UK (Votes were I believe counted on the last night, so I await the outcome as to whether I now need my passport to visit the area), The Queen’s 90th birthday party, with Charles trying to wish his mother a happy birthday on the phone, which brought us up to mine, and I think most of the audience’s favourite sketch of the night, ‘Bake Off.’ Played in two parts either side of the interval, this was really clever, in that it had two very good look and sound alikes, Liz Murphy and Julie Daniel playing Mel and Sue, whilst the participants were all characters from Shakespearian plays strategically dotted around the church: Hamlet (Paul Goodyer), Mark Anthony (Andrew Moore) and Cleopatra (Ruth Murphy), A Witch from Macbeth (Pippa Ellson) and King Henry V (Nick Grantham). Thus, to every question Mel and Sue asked the ‘bakers,’ out would come a well-known speech from each of the Bard’s appropriate masterpieces, which could be cleverly related to the questions. Hamlet, by the way was the winner.
Music from Steve Kaye (Guitar), Gerald Ward (Keyboard) and Brenda Steward (viola) played a major role throughout with some interestingly comic variations on the words to amongst others, ‘Yesterday,’ Save all Your Kisses for Me’ as a homage to the new Stars Wars Movie which came out this year and a very good rewriting of the late, great David Bowie’s ‘Starman’ paying homage not only to Bowie but to Major Tim Peak our first Brit on the space station. I was a little disappointed that more use of music wasn’t made especially between and during introductions to the sketches, as some of the longer scene changes might have benefited as would the overall tempo and thus helped push the pace along.
The second half included a sketch on the phenonium of Pokémon, which I recognised from my own neighbours wandering around mobiles in hand. Not being a participant myself, apart from the giant Pokémon hidden in the pulpit the humour of this rather passed me by I’m afraid, but many of the rest of the audience got it perfectly.
Apart from the Bake Off, my favourite had to be the homage to the passing of Sylvia Andersen, creator of Thunderbirds, with some splendid costumes by Jenny Pawling, Cathy Goodyer, Cynthia Green and Kim King, and excellent make up by Charlotte Wilson, A particular mention of the wonderful eyebrows, which amusingly kept falling off, adding superb impromptu laughter as the actors sort to re-stick them back on. Live theatre going wrong at its best. I was also impressed with Ruth Murphy’s version of Scott. She had the puppeteer actions down to a tee. And not to forget Steve Kaye who absolutely nailed Parker’s voice. Wonderful stuff.
Other sketches included The Olympics, and Quasimodo replacing the Bells in the church, starting none other than the Vicar, Brenda Stewart as herself!
On the whole I’d say some worked better than others, perhaps some were a little under rehearsed, maybe due to last minute writing changes and some pace was lost when some actors struggled for their lines. Comedy is of course entirely dependent on timing and jokes were falling wide of their mark when this happened, which was a pity. That did however lead to one splendid moment when one older actor on failing to hear his prompt for the second or third time looked straight out front and said with great confidence ‘No, I didn’t get that!’ to much hilarity from the audience. Such moments are of course what makes live theatre so magical.
Well done to Director Andrew Moore and the entire cast Dorothy Croom, Julie Daniel, Pippa Ellson, Paul Goodyer, Nick Grantham, Steve and Jayne Kaye, Emma and Rachel McCreath, Andrew and Belinda Moore, Ian and Ruth Murphy, Ken Payne, Brenda Stewart and Gerald Ward, all of whom played many different parts too numerous to list them all. A good time was had by all and the audience left with large grins on their faces.
The whole evening was dedicated to and some of the profit sent to ‘Bloodwise,’ a charity supporting treatment of blood related cancers, in memory of my NODA colleague, Sandra Samwell who was the representative for this area and who sadly died of Leukaemia this summer. Thank you CATS on behalf of NODA, your efforts are much appreciated.
As a guest reviewer for the area this was my second show and I thank you for your hospitality and hope that one day I may yet get the privilege of another CATS show. Keep up the home-grown work, it’s a rare treat these days.
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