Feelgood

I'd heard it said that “through this play, politics has never been so funny!” – And how correct this is!

I must admit that usually, whenever people lead a conversation down a politically heavy route I try to change the subject or switch off, so when I read up a little about this play before I attended – I cannot lie – I didn’t have particularly high expectations for what I was going to see!

What I saw could not have been further from what I was anticipating – it was a full quota of humour, irony and showmanship, how could this be a political play? – I was engrossed AND liked it ….a lot!

The set was as believable as it could be with fine attention to detail, it soon became clear that the technical requirements for this play could seriously hinder the piece if not as slick as it were – mobiles, pagers and hotel phones ringing, alarms going off, ‘your call is important to us - please hold – MUSIC – press 1 for….’ on load speaker, TV footage synced with the on stage dialogue etc - Congratulations for the smooth delivery of all these things which are sent to try us!

Peter Nawn conveys a ruthlessly manipulative Eddie as he goes to any length to ensure he retains his hold over the PM – a superb and faultless performance!

Terry Hollinshead is excellently cast too as George, the bumbling, sheepish Cabinet Minister whose greed and naivety threaten to bring the Government to its knees – his gormless manor and cantankerous nature was thoroughly entertaining and evidently achieved the majority of the plays humour.

Howard Bramwell gave an accomplished performance as Paul, a sensitive and thoughtful portrayal and a good counterpoint to Eddie’s domineering forcefulness - entirely believable.

Adam Garnett as Simon had bags of energy and certainly put the spanner in the works – in more ways than one – for me, this portrayal was the least believable of the bunch – yes, I appreciate he is the ‘lunatic’ of the piece though I felt he was a little too forced and leaning towards ‘caricature’ which, for me, didn’t seem to sit right but non the less, the audience were clearly enjoying his performance as he was certainly getting the laughs.

Sale NOMADS luminary, Mary Ellis plays Liz – and (as you’d expect) treats us to yet another delightful performance, she delivers humour through frustration very effectively while trying to order room service and had established relationships with all the players she came in contact with – very easy to watch though I don’t think this particular role gave scope for her to highlight her strengths, however , that’s no one’s fault so I’ll be fair and judge what she delivered which was top quality, as good as it could be.

Belly Jellyman puts in a great cameo as the PM (known as DL – ‘Divine Light!’ …oh please!) who we only first meet five minutes before final curtain - I especially enjoyed him tearing up his prepared speech to give this heartfelt, spontaneous one …Yeah right!

‘Feelgood’ certainly lives up to its name – a sterling job by the team at Sale NOMADS!

Congratulations to all and especially Director, David Black for an all-round well-constructed and executed production.

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