Our House

I was knocked-out by the choreography of Our House.  It was varied, it was wonderfully lively, and it was executed with great enthusiasm by the cast.  Most of the effort, rightly, went into the ensemble pieces, but there was room for a contrasting couple of quick duets.  There’s no room for an orchestra pit at the Berry Theatre, which is a pity, because I would have welcomed a view of the band who were working their socks off in a rehearsal room somewhere, with only MD Will Pickering visible to the cast (and a few audience members craning their necks) via a couple of monitors.

Structurally, Our House is unusual in that it starts with a turning point in the life of Joe on his first date with Sarah (Aimee Wright).  From then on, we see two alternative stories running in parallel for the rest of the show.  This is an interesting theatrical device, but made for a lot of work, particularly for the excellent Sam Hussey as Joe, whose only time offstage seemed to be to change costume from one story line to the other.  The frequent costume changes may have contributed to the technical problems: on the night I saw the show, Sam’s head mic cut out at a point when he was singing the lead - so as he moved his voice was picked up by the boundary mics, then lost again.  In the finale, his battery pack came adrift and emerged down his trouser leg, from where it had to be rescued without interrupting the dance routine - no mean feat.

Musically, the source material - pop songs from Madness - has a limited range (vocally and stylistically), so constrained the opportunities for the company to show off their singing talents, nevertheless, the vocals were good throughout, both from the principals and the energetic supporting chorus.  The acting was good too, with Emma Harris, Amy Leonard, Dave Smith and Stu Collins providing the light relief as Joe and Sarah’s comical school friends, AnnMarie Parsons as Kath and Mark Barton-Leigh as Dad providing the serious support and Adrian Jones and Paul Rogers suitably villainous as the unscrupulous Mr Pressman and the dodgy criminal Reecey.

A very slick production!

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