Our House

Our House is a musical by Tom Firth with music and lyrics by Madness and is named after one of their hit singles ‘Our House’.  One song, ‘It Must Be Love’, was written  by Labi Siffre. The plot is very complicated and at times it seems quite unclear what is actually happening. It follows the life of Joe Casey where, on the night of his 16th. birthday, he takes Sarah, the girl of his dreams, to a building development near his house to show her the view over London and of the street where he lives. However the police arrive and Joe faces a tough decision: to run, or give himself up. At this point the story splits and we follow the two differing paths that Joe could take, that of Good Joe or Bad Joe. The two paths are carefully watched over by Joe’s deceased father, who regrets his own criminal choices that saw him neglect his family. This is one of those shows that totally revolves around one character, well two really, as the role of Joe demands ‘two’ very different characterisations. So to carry this off in a way that transmits this to an audience, you most definitely need a good actor and that was certainly the case with Martin Counter. To help us with the identification he either was dressed in all white or all black (with some very quick changes needed) but his demeanor, his facial expressions, his whole body language really spoke for themselves. He was absolutely superb and his acting skills were excellently and equally matched by those of his singing and dancing - a most impressive, enthusiastic  and energetic performance. Sarah was delightfully played by Remi Hines in her first principal role. She acted and sang beautifully and the duet with Joe ‘It Must Be Love’ was super. There was an excellent performance from Phil Stanley as Joe’s dad and Sharon Stone showed real warmth and was so believable as his Irish mother, never once losing that remarkable accent. I loved the pairing of Dan Shaw as Lewis and Connah Porter as Emmo, Joe’s mates. They were just great, bringing out the humour in the script splendidly. Stacey Hyndman as Billie and Jessica Allinson as Angie, Sarah’s friends, were equally as good. Both these ‘pairings’ were an absolute  joy to watch. Another strong performance came from Dale Hind as Reecey who swaggered around the stage as befitted this petty crook and Dan Skidmore carried off the role of the dodgy property developer with great assuredness. The eleven named cast members playing multiple roles were splendid as were the six specialist dancers. The set, comprised of two sets of steps at either side of the stage with a raised walkway at the back and rotating side flats, was designed and built ‘in-house’. The excellent nine piece band was situated behind the walkway and a large screen was in constant use for the showing of some first-rate videos and still shots. The full chorus numbers, especially ‘Our House’. ‘Baggy Trousers’, ‘House of Fun’ and ‘Wings of a Dove’ were extremely well sung with excellent choreography that was so energetically and enthusiastically danced, they were just terrific. I loved the ‘Driving in My Car’ scene where a ‘car’ miraculously appeared from underneath the ‘walkway’ and along with Joe, Sara and their friends we were taken on a really precarious roller-coaster ride! Excellent costumes and props, good lighting and sound all added to make this a real fun show. Congratulations to everyone involved.

Joyce Handbury

joyce.handbury@w3z.co.uk

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