Bad Reception

Bad Reception

Many thanks to the Green Room for inviting me to see their play Bad Reception, I was a little disappointed on being invited but having nobody there to meet and greet me as it is usually nice to talk to someone beforehand about the group and various things but still this did not distract me from enjoying myself in this wonderful little theatre.

Bad Reception was written by Zoe Badder and what a wonderful treat the audience had in store from laughter, drama and a very intriguing twist at the end of the play on which I did not see coming.

The show started with two sisters Helen Smith played by Kate Sparkes-McSevich and Sophie Hart played by Olivia Atkinson, their mother had died so Sophie decided to speak with Helen’s Mother In Law Viv Smith played by Kath Paterson and book a hotel in Scotland for a short break, although Helen was not happy at spending time away with Viv she ended up agreeing to go away with them. The chemistry the three of them had, worked very well on stage and this came across to the audience.

On arriving at the hotel, they were greeted by Mandy Ross played by Heather Gorst who from the start of the play to the end of the play kept a straight face with a lot of snide comments on various things and her comedy timing had the audience laughing with every remark she made.

There was also another guest in the hotel Peter Wood played by David Ross who was a writer and although he was in the background a bit you could sense as the play went on there was more to him than you thought.

Then bursting onto the scene was Duncan Ross played by Dale Howcroft, who had the audience in fits of laughter with his Scottish accent and his mannerism. He and his wife Mandy were the owners of the hotel but whilst Mandy was basically running the hotel single handedly Duncan was either fishing or upstairs with his parrots in the aviary (no not a cage). Not sure if the chef was Gordon Ramsey or not but really enjoyed the throwing of utensils from the kitchen onto to stage so although we never saw the chef it was so realistic that we thought there was a chef in the kitchen cooking and prepping things.

The play was directed by Judith Henderson and although it may be a smaller stage than normal the cast used every bit of the stage to its full potential so well-done Judith you could see how much the audience enjoyed the show with their laughter.

The set looked amazing and Chris McBride the Stage Manager and his crew must be really happy with the design.

Sound by Mitch Ralley and Kim Graham was very good as was the lighting by Sean Reynolds

The only thing I found which I thought could have been a bit better was the front cover of the programme, it was so hard to read the Writer and Director as the colour of the writing was matching the background, also on the back page where it was advertising the oncoming shows there was a blank area where a short description of the play could have been written to inform the audiences what they are about. Saying that there was plenty of detail inside the programme.

Overall, a very good play with a good cast which had the audiences laughing from start to finish, well done to everybody involved.

 

Jim Morgan

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