Khaotic

A warm welcome was given to us by the front of house team on arrival to see this unusual and informative production.

The story is the life story of Fred Karno, the trapeze artist and music hall impresario who discovered some of the world’s greatest comic talent.  These included Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin.  Each scene was preceded by a narration informing us of the point we had reached in Fred’s life.  How he met, and left, his wife and her devotion to him and his comic’s.

Leading this very talented company as the man himself, Fred Karno, was the multi talented Dave Crump, who not only lead the company, but directed the production and also wrote the story.  He has also written a book about Fred.  Dave gave a sterling performance putting everything he had into the role.  Supporting him as Fred’s wife, Edith was Dave’s wife, Debbie Crump.  She had such a stage presence and sang so well.  This family are so talented with their son Charlie also appearing.  Giving great support was Tina Romano as Marie Lloyd, who had all the audience singing along and Alison Cahill as Naomi Jacobs.  Keith Hayes played film producer Mack Sennett and Robin Klein-Christoffels as another of Fred’s love interest, Maggie Moore. I enjoyed the performance of Simon Baker as Stan Laurel.  Great support came from the supporting cast and ensemble who all worked well together.

The music from the orchestra was just at the right level as every word could be heard from the stage.    The lighting was effective and the costumes looked good.  The company used back projection for this show and it really looked good.  Scene changes were well covered.

It was good to see and speak to members of the Karno family in the audience and to hear how true to life the piece was.

This was a great piece of theatre which, after which has gone though many rewrites since Dave first conceived it 15 years ago.

Congratulations to you all.

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