Family Planning

It was a pleasure to return to this venue after many years on behalf of Matt Bryant and a huge thanks to the company for their welcome.

Family Planning by Frank Vickery is a very popular play set in the 1980’s. It includes a pregnant teen, a hypochondriac father ,a femme fatale of a next door neighbour and a bed bound granny all puttting upon a solid dependable wife and mother.

As Gran is ensconced in bed for the whole show it is played on two levels, I liked Sue’s design of the set with the bedroom on a higher level upstage left.

The set was well decorated and suitable for the era, it worked really well congratulations . I was also impressed with all the costumes which immediately took us back to the Eighties especially Tracy and Bobby.

This play relies greatly on timing both with dialogue and technical effects, there were a few issues with these on the evening we watched but I put that down to First night Gremlins.

Gran was played by Phil Davies, this follows the original production where Frank Vickery played the character. This is a difficult role as the actor is permanently set on stage and requires great concentration and some improvisation. 

Angie Driscoll took on the role of the long suffering wife Elsie and I enjoyed her performance. She had good characterisation and played the role really well, congratulations.

Idris was played by Tim Driscoll , he gave a strong performance as the hypochondriac father who misunderstands a conversation between his wife and daughter and thinks he has weeks to live.

This actor had some lovely moments and I was particularly amused with his ad lib at one time when the lighting cue wasn't quite right.

The role of Tracy the teenage daughter was taken by Evie Parker and as I mentioned previously she definitely looked like a teen from the Eighties. Evie had some lovely scenes with all the characters but I especially liked her scene with Gran when chatting about her pregnancy.

Bobby, the father of the baby and Tracy’s boyfriend, was played by Shane Probert. Shane definitely took me back to my youth with his costume and punk hairstyle. A good performance again by this young actor.

The next door neighbour Maisie Millard was played by Linda Coombes and definitely was involved in some of the funnier scenes of the play. Relating the story of her wedding night to Bobby and Idris up to her final seduction of Idris were lovely moments.

A final mention must be made to Niall Dorrington who played Jeffrey. This character has no major lines and just sits on the sofa knitting. It is totally reliant on facial expressions and movement very well done.

A huge congratulations to Sue and the team for bringing this hilarious comedy to us, one full of Welsh humour as is to be expected from one of Vickery’s plays.

Congratulations on your 25 th Anniversary and I look forward to joining you once again for We Will Rock You.

The views in this report are solely of the author.

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