Meat and Two Veg

A second one act play for Hunstanton Drama Festival, this was a three-hander based
around neighbourly competition over home grown vegetables and a misunderstanding.

The setting was around a Dining Table which was laid for a meal during the opening
scenes, three dining chairs, upstage were two panels papered to represent the back wall
of the dining room, a successful simple setting. Off stage right leading to the kitchen
and offstage left representing the exit to the neighbour’s house and garden as
designated by the dialogue and movements.

The humour is clearly based initially around the growing and picking of Runner Beans
and French Beans for serving with Coq au Vin and as the play progressed the
misunderstanding concerning the whereabouts of neighbour Alberts wife. Mary Wade
gave us Margaret and her husband and neighbour were performed respectively by David
Blaikie as Arthur and James Walters as Albert. These three had kept their dialogue,
which was very comedic around vegetables, very tight and well timed, rise and fall and
tempo was good although there were about three stumbles over lines. Being set around
a dining table movement could have been very static but good use was made of
movement to and fro from the stage and around the table. Initially I found the sequence
where Margaret was showing Albert her Knees a bit confusing, which I suspect was a mix
between with the script and the acting.

A good use was made of props, especially bags of beans, although I did feel that when
they were eating the meal and Albert held up a fork talking about the taste of a potato
end there was nothing on the fork. It was nice to see liquid being poured from the wine
bottle into the wine glasses. The bone appeared quite authentic and helped with the
final scene where Arthur appears and says that he found his neighbour’s wife and his
own wife faints. This finding of the wife had been signposted although the later part of
the script showed that the couple were clearly led to believe she was dead. Ultimately
this was an amusing and entertaining production, good luck.

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