One For The Road

This play by Willy Russell tells the story of Dennis Cain on the eve of his 40th. birthday. He is totally at odds with his current life-style feeling that he is stuck in a rut, tired of keeping up with the ‘Joneses’ and particularly sick of John Denver! He plans to escape and break free to go back to his former easy going life style of travelling etc. with just a rucksack! The set was of the lounge/dining area of his home. It was well designed by Barry Brown and together with excellent props of the era sourced by Ann Taylor it was indeed a remarkable achievement in such a small restrictive space. The play opens with his wife Pauline getting ready for the planned dinner party to celebrate his birthday with the guests being the next door neighbours and Denis’s parents. Pauline definitely wants to keep up with the Joneses and tries her best to ignore his rants whilst anxiously trying to make things perfect for the evening ahead. The part of Pauline was exquisitely portrayed by Alex Wrampling in her debut performance with the players. Mik Horvath, also in his first role with the Players, was absolutely superb as Dennis, expressively portraying the many and varied aspects of this complex character. After the arrival of their neighbours and friends Roger and Jane Fuller things take a turn for the worse for Dennis but in the ensuing conversations all is not as it should be with the relationship between Roger and Jane and tempers become even more frayed. During all this Dennis is constantly answering the telephone trying to direct his parents to his home which he does quite calmly amid the turmoil around him. Alyson Koe gives a tremendously energetic performance as the overbearing, arrogant, snooty and know-it-all Jane as does Stephen Lee Rees as Roger her exuberant husband. There was a terrific interaction between the characters and the excellent timing and comedic exploits of all four of the actors was just sublime making this a truly brilliant interpretation of this witty and cleverly scripted play. I congratulate Jane Wilton and all those involved for producing an outstanding evening of hilarious entertainment and wasn’t it nice that mum finally arrived, with hopefully Dad, not far behind!!

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.