Lucky Stiff

On arrival in the theatre, the audience was faced with a set comprising merely of a number of doors. Clearly a subliminal message here – the production you are about to witness will be a farce !!

“Lucky Stiff” is a show that I had not previously been acquainted with. A musical farce based on the novel “The Man who broke the bank of Monte Carlo”. As with all farces the story was convoluted and bizarre, just as it should be !! Farces must comply with a set of “rules” and all were observed here. The wildly outlandish story (involving a shoe salesman passing a corpse off as a living person in order to obtain an inheritance) gets ever more convoluted with many twists and turns. Act 1 ends with a cliff hanger and Act 2 picks up where Act 1 left off (in fact this reminded me very much of Funny Thing Happened on Way to Forum). There is then a set of improbable revelations that bring the story to a sudden conclusion. There are many characters and in any farce the audience are encouraged not to try and follow the plot line too closely as that would only increase confusion. It is best to let a farce just wash over you !!

A great cast had been lined up, with not a weak link among them. In fact a show such as this cannot afford to have a weak link. Pace is all and a missed line here, or a low energy performance there, would spell disaster. The pace was frenetic! By playing the material “straight” the laughs come naturally. You should never have to try to force the laughs with farce, and this team got it just right. Many of the company were playing a number of roles each, and often appearing seconds later in a different guise. It must have been manic backstage !!

Musically, the show was first rate and the three piece combo off stage left supported very well indeed. Although unfamiliar to me, the music is very attractive and fitted the genre well.

Farces demand good ensemble playing with everyone working as a team to ensure the smooth running of the piece. Therefore, with such a uniformly good cast I don’t want to single anyone out ... apart from Ryan Limb as Harry Witherspoon, the hapless hero of the piece, for his tour de force performance and Luke Stenner for the incredibly difficult job of the corpse. Not as easy as it might sound, considering what happens to the corpse at various stages.

Technically, the only issue was with the many doors. Some of which had minds of their own and sometimes sprang open. However the slickness of the presentation and the ease with which the cast grasped the material meant that they just closed the doors as they went. If they passed an open door, it got closed !! This then incorporated this slight problem with the set into the action, and hey presto, it seemed a problem no more and just part of the overall fun.

I loved the Rondo as a venue, and the playing area suited this piece down to the ground.

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