Out of Order

OUT OF ORDER by Ray Cooney was a farce and contained all the usual ingredients: lots of opening and closing of doors, negligee clad woman, errant husbands, mistimed phone calls and mistaken identities. The story starts when a scheming Tory Minister endeavours to have a night of passion with a Labour secretary. The initial stumbling block is the
appearance of a corpse, seemingly trapped in a sash window onto the balcony. And then things go from bad to worse!

The costumes were very good and all the cast were dressed appropriately: smart suits for the Ministers, negligee for the Labour Secretary. Everyone’s costume was relevant to their role such as smart suit for the Hotel Manager and the apron clad waiter.

The set was excellent and the décor was in keeping with a smart, Westminster hotel room that had been recently decorated. There were doors leading off to the bedroom and hotel corridor as well as a well-used walk-in cupboard/wardrobe and a window, leading to the balcony. The working window played a large part of the action. The props were good; 90s phone, room service trolley and other personal props.

The sound was good with voices clear. The radio could have been louder and I did find it hard to understand what was being said. The sound effect of the telephone was well timed and efficient.

This was an exceptionally funny (and very convoluted) story. There were some solid performances from the cast, led by Steve Schollar in fine form as the Tory Minister, Mr Willey and Andrew J Smith as his PPS George Pigden, who was called in to clear up the mess and avoid scandal. They had great chemistry and comic timing as the situation got more  complicated. Richard Meir as the greedy waiter got quite a few laughs as he cashed in on the Minister’s misfortune and Tracy Maher as The Body, deserves special praise for her great comic physicality as she was manouevred around the stage from the window, to the cupboard where she was ‘hung’ up before being thrown around in a ‘dance’ move and then slid onto the floor from the back of the chaise longue!

This political satire, as relevant today as when it was written, was brought to life in this very funny play. Directed by Andrew J Smith (who also appeared as George Pigden) this was a hugely enjoyable and very polished production.

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