Betty Blue Eyes

This musical comedy, new on the amateur scene, is set in a small Northern English town in 1947 whose citizens endure continuing food rationing following the end of the war, with the only bright spark on the horizon being the impending marriage of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip.  This setting made seeing the show on the Friday before remembrance Sunday, very fitting.  The story follows the lives of local chiropodist Gilbert Chilvers, his wife Joyce Chilvers who has dreams of a higher social status, and Joyce’s mother who is always dearly referred to as Mother Dear.  Taking on these roles were Sharon McDonald as Joyce, Adam Dawson as Gilbert and Margaret Nicol as Mother Dear.  Sharon brought Joyce to life by showcasing fantastic; comedic timing, expressive fascial features and character acting in this comical leading role.  Adding to this with strong vocals and movement in many songs including her showstopper “Nobody” backed with excellent feature dancers.  Adam portrayed a soft natured Gilbert combined with excellent comedy quips throughout.  His solo numbers “A Place on the Parade” and “The Kind of Man I Am” where beautifully sung and acted.  Margaret had the audience bursting with laughter from the moment she stepped onto the stage.  Her delivery and timing of the ever-hungry Mother Dear’s comical dialogue was genius, and the physicality of her character again just too funny.  The highpoint for all three was in the song “Pig, No Pig”, which was hysterical.  The Chilvers, Joyce especially, are keen to attend a private function being hosted by some local businessmen to celebrate the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip. The businessmen made up of; James Nicol as the hard-nosed Dr Swaby, Allan Ward as the hilarious Mr Allardyce, and Ron Swanson as the entertaining Francis Lockwood, worked very well together and their song “A Private Function” was very well done.  Another light-hearted comedy highlight in the show was the title song “Betty Blue Eyes” featuring Allan (Mr Allardyce) and Adam (Gilbert Chilvers).  Another key character to the show is the cheeky daughter of Mr Allardyce, Veronica.  Veronica was played by Téa Payne who used strong acting and stage presence to bring this bratty character into the story.   The group of business men organising the party illegally decide to raise a pig for their function, which is when we meet Betty.  The puppet of Betty was superb and so was her handler Nicola Hume who managed to blend unnoticed at times into the background of the scenes, but if you did look at her, she displayed sympathetic expressions and movements to echo how Betty was feeling.  A very creative and clever role, executed well.  The story progresses with Betty being stolen by the Chilvers’, hunted for, found, considered for slaughter and then released.  Meanwhile all this is happening, and throughout the show is food inspector Mr Wormold, played by Graeme Strawhorn, who is determined to stop activities circumventing the food rationing.  Graeme’s darker, intriguing Wormold was brilliant.  He also managed to capture some humour in his main number “Upholding The Law” which featured some dainty skipping dance moves to contrast the stern character.  The story is developed throughout by an array of minor principal characters all ably played by a very talented and confident ensemble.  The ensemble all showed individual characters which was lovely to see, and they presented strong choral harmony singing and excellent movement in the bigger numbers which complimented the themes and decade of the show’s setting.  I would also like to compliment the song “Magic Fingers” by trio Olive Lindsay, Paula Payne and Isobel Miller, which was beautiful and Lisa MacMillan for her portrayal of the snooty Mrs Allardyce.  Congratulations for pulling all this together has to go to the production team of Linda, Andrew and Gwyneth for creating a dynamic and lively show with a very clever yet simple set.  I was also very impressed by the speed of the scene changes, so a huge well done to Stage Manager Stuart McKinlay and his stage crew for that.  In particular the technique and idea used for the larger banquette table in the later scenes, and how it was able to cross the entire stage while being set up and removed in seconds, was particularly impressive and inventive.  Another fantastic success for APOS which continues their run of presenting newly released amateur licensed shows.  I can’t wait to see what they have planned for next year.

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