Midsummer Madness

This was my first visit to the Limelight Players, and on what was becoming one of the hottest weekends for several years, it was a delight to be presented with an evening of well-constructed silliness to take one’s mind off the sweltering auditorium!

The double-bill (or triple bill, as we were treated later to two episodes of Fawlty Towers) kicked off with the third play in David Tristram’s Little Grimley series – The Fat Lady Sings in Little Grimley, although this, and several other locations had been adapted to more local villages to garner a few more laughs from the loyal and local audience. Although I had not seen the preceding two plays in this series, the characters were well portrayed and clear enough from the start to make them and their situation feel very familiar.

Despite a slightly slow start, and a somewhat quiet audience, the cast soon hit their stride, particularly when the more physical aspects of the comedy came into play, the cast seeming to ‘free up’ as they moved away from the table that they were rooted to in the early exchanges. Pete Davidson as the ‘ring leader’ Gordon, particularly seemed to be enjoying being able to prowl the stage like a caged tiger, as he plotted the downfall of their neighbouring society, and this also seemed to energise his fellow performers as they warmed to their devious task. The simple set and scene changes were dealt with easily and the company never seemed to be uncomfortable with only having a small part of the stage to work on, and made good use of the exits and entrances through the auditorium as well as the wings. Despite the relatively thin story line, all four members had clearly been given strong direction to inhabit and develop their own characters and to feel like real people and not stereotypes – credit to the director for this, and for the pace which after the first few minutes really moved along nicely. The very simple set, costumes and props also helped to give us a clear sense of the space and environment without the need for further explanation. Of course, a special mention must go to Graham Southey as Bernard – I hope he likes bananas…!!

That said, my only criticism of the piece itself, and this possibly comes from not knowing the other plays, is that it did feel at times that the dialogue had become repetitive, and the story in the early stages struggled to go anywhere. It had the feeling of being a shorter sketch that had been padded out to fill an hour, or perhaps the third act of a three act play, rather than really having enough about it to work as a one-act play in its own right. But that quibble aside, the cast clearly threw everything they had at the story as it was, and were clearly having lots of fun with characters that they were very comfortable with and had put a lot of thought and development into.

The second half of the evening gave us two episodes of Fawlty Towers. As acknowledged in the programme, and as the company is clearly aware from having tackled The Vicar of Dibley last year, and facing Blackadder next year, it is very daunting to produce something which is both so well-loved and well-known. What the Limelight Players achieved with this production was incredibly faithful to the original series, but still entertaining in its own right, and something with which I’m sure the original writers could have been impressed.

The set was an excellent recreation of the foyer of the infamous hotel, with a clever false wall which allowed us to see into the dining room, and provide the doorway which creates so much havoc in The Builders. Much attention had clearly been paid to the costumes, with some wonderful recreations of Sybil’s garish outifts, Polly and Manuel’s uniforms and other period suits, including Basil’s hideously 70’s tweed jacket in the second half.

Tony South had the unenviable task of bringing one of the most well-known and often-imitated characters to life, and succeeded in a sterling effort. When performing words written and performed by John Cleese, there must be a temptation to lapse into sheer mimicry, but I felt that throughout Tony had succeeded in making this Basil his own. Obviously there were times when there really is only one way to deliver certain lines, and the mania in Basil’s boiling frustrations was perfectly pitched and everything we remembered from the classic programme, but there were quieter moments in Tony’s performance which showed that he really felt for and understood his character, making this a more rounded performance than a simple Cleese impersonation.

The whole cast showed a similar level of detail in their characters – giving the audience what they expect when necessary, but also showing enough of their own personality and performance to show that thought has been put into this through rehearsals with their director. Whether this was making adjustments to timing or gestures to compensate for the transition from TV to stage, or the business of characters who barely say a word but were totally engrossed in the action throughout (the Major and the old ladies, in particular), this showed that Graham Thomas had clearly worked hard with his company to achieve that very fine balance between rewarding the audience with some very recognisable old favourites, but not making us feel that we could have simply been watching repeats on BBC2.

As I’ve touched on previously, this is much more of an ensemble show than one may expect from the original series, as without the benefit of cameras cutting away, the cast really do have to inhabit the hotel, and without exception, this cast did so admirably. Tony Browne’s wonderfully pompous Hutchinson (almost more Bernard Cribbins-like than Cribbins original!) and Denyse Brimble’s delightfully infuriating Sybil were just two of the performances that caught my eye in particular, but the whole cast deserve credit for an excellent job with bringing this to life.

Thank you to the company for your hospitality before the performance and during the interval. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay for longer afterwards and meet more of the cast. Congratulations on a very entertaining evening, and I wish you every success for your future productions.

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