Neighbourhood Watch

I was delighted to be invited to Alnwick Theatre Club for their production of ‘Neighbourhood Watch’, as this is the first time I have seen them perform a play. It is obvious that this society revels in drama productions and they certainly have talented actors whom they can depend on to fill the very challenging roles and this production was no exception. Lots of twists and turns in the plot required very precise timing for those on stage and they rose admirably to these demands and kept the plot flowing.

It was an extremely good play highlighting an understanding of the flaws of our society and how dangerous it can be to take the law into your own hands.  The cast on stage were word perfect delivering their lines and roles to maximise the humour in this play to its full effect and yet at times the reflective melancholy of the play was right on cue too. The characters in the play were very well cast indeed and each person in their role brought their person to life and made sure they were convincing. Every ounce of humour was milked from every performance and it was obvious everyone gave 100% in what seemed effortless performances.

Oliver Pusey as ‘Martin’ and Lisa Gladstone as ‘Hilda’, were superb. They had huge amounts of dialogue to learn and delivered outstanding word perfect performances and were on stage most of the show, their performances were a credit to them. In particular Oliver is certainly a natural and I take my hat off to him in learning all those lines. The pair of them were hilarious at times but managed throughout to keep hold of their persona of being devout Christians!

They were backed up by a very strong supporting cast who were a joy to watch as the story unfolded and they portrayed their characters so well. Namely Susan Joyce as ‘Dorothy’, Tony Neale as ‘Rod’, Matt Bush as ‘Luther’, Maggie Wallace as ‘Magda’, Peter Biggers as ‘Gareth’ and Wendy Richardson as ‘Amy’.

It was a great night seeing this society in action and I only wished they had, had a much larger audience as those not there missed a real treat.  Everything seemed to go well both on stage and back stage although I did feel the set could have done with a little more dressing and sitting stage right it was a while before I was aware of the ‘French Doors’ into the garden and as this was an important part of the set and the plot I feel it could have been brought forward more as there certainly was room on stage to do so. On moving to a central seat in second half it was much better. However this was an excellent production and I thoroughly enjoyed my evening and hope I will be invited back to future productions. Well done to everyone on stage, backstage and the production team, it was a great effort and well worthwhile all your hard work.

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