Acorn Antiques - The Musical

This show has not been performed too often by amateur societies although it is an extremely funny script with plenty of opportunity for having fun.  I suspect it is because the leading characters are very iconic and woe betide any society who is unable to cast them to match the original Victoria Wood pattern.

I am pleased to say that Blackmore Players did, indeed, manage to cast the show accurately and, in particular with Barbara Harrold in the role of Mrs O. She gave an excellent performance with just the right amount of homage to the original, Julie Walters, performance but she also made the part her own.  Linda Cearns (Miss Babs) and Sandra Trott (Miss Berta) looked absolutely right and they had clearly worked hard to produce the characters that the script required.  Debbie Stevens completed the triplets as Miss Bonnie and very good she was too.   Keith Goody played Mr Clifford well and all of these Principals came together to give the story its comedy.  Rhys Burrell and Emma Harmston were excellent as, the pitiful adolescents, Hugh and Mimi.   The rest of the cast made this show a real enjoyment to watch, making the most of the very funny script and the timing for all the innuendos and jokes was spot on. 

The standing set was very good and the way the street scene folded back to reveal the shop interior looked good and worked very well.  I know that the space on the stage and in the wings is extremely limited but we did not get that impression from the audience perspective.   It all worked very well and we didn’t miss the stairlift!   I would have liked to have seen the large television removed for the second half but that is being really picky!

Lighting and music were good although the mics were not always turned up on time and this made the sound a bit patchy.  But, given the constraints on this venue, I thought the whole show worked well.   Blackmore has a very sympathetic audience who obviously enjoyed the humour and spectacle and it was clear from the audience’s comments as they left that this was another good production from the Blackmore Players.

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