Humble Boy

‘Humble Boy’, written by Charlotte Jones in 2001, is a very modern and funny script, which is very current in both its humour and subject matter. It is appreciated by audiences, as it has many likenesses to present day life. From the words used in the dialogue to the attitudes of the characters, people can associate with them. The story revolves around the ‘Humble’ family and the death of the late father and husband. The play progresses with the son being very unhappy due to his mother’s ease of moving on after his late father’s death. Also how she seemed to have got rid of his possessions mainly his colony of bees. The storyline takes many twists and turns, a lot of unexpected events and things finally come to light. The theme of bees runs throughout the play with various jokes and links to them.

When the play began the curtain lifted on what was once again a superbly dressed set. It was a complete garden with trees, plants, grass, a garden shed and the double patio doors of a house. The whole set seemed well constructed and was extremely functional throughout the whole play. With extra bits coming to light as we got further into the play, such as the expertly timed falling apple from the tree. Centre stage in pride of place sat a beehive which formed a basis for a lot of the dialogue, jokes and some of the story within the play was based on this hive as well. It was nice to see that the society had gained outside support for the sponsorship of the hive and the production programme also gave some very interesting information on the subject.

The play got off to a good start with superb diction and amazing characterisations. Being able to pronounce and articulate every word, even when a character has a speech impediment it is not an easy thing to do, but this was achieved excellently. The pace was good from the outset and was not at all laboured. Although there are many parts to this story due to the cast’s superb acting of it, the plot could easily be followed. It was not as confusing as some plays can be and it all worked towards an unexpected ending.

The main story within the play has very emotive themes and in the wrong hands it would not have been as well received by the audience as it was. The comedy elements were brought out very well due to the experienced cast and the first class direction of the production. The show is naughtily comical due to the underlying themes of the play, but it was done in the best of tastes. It could have easily been a tedious play to watch and without a good level of humour the deeper and quite sombre themes would have had an even greater bearing on the show, reducing its appeal. The good fast pace of the show enabled the light-hearted nature to be kept throughout, even though there were many disagreements between characters.

The cast were once again very well selected and worked well together on stage. They all gave very confident performances.  Relationships between characters for family or love were all very believable, which added to the overall professional feel of this play. Every cast member maintained their characterisation throughout the whole production. Even managing to get a greater depth where their character changed and developed throughout the play, which added an extra dimension to the play which is sometimes lacking in amateur productions.  The costumes were very well suited to the characters and looked correct for the role they fulfilled.

Overall this was an enjoyable production and Blackburn Drama Club did justice to the script once again. The quality of staging, direction and performance were all superb and this society can definitely pride itself on striving for the best and achieving high standards of production. The cast and production team should be proud of what they managed to do with this production. We are already looking forward to the society's next play in April of the much loved 'Ladies Day.'

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