Outside Edge

The first thing to say about this show is that one must throw out all thoughts of logical progression and simply be happy to take things as they occur. And do they occur!!  This is, of course, the beauty of farce and there were in this cast and production, plenty of the necessary elements to take the audience along in the enjoyment of people seen to be doing and saying silly things. The whole show was packed with interventions and complications from telephone calls, unexpected arrivals and late arrivals all requiring speed of delivery, with pauses in the right place, exits, entrances and effects timed to perfection. My congratulations go to Carol Clark and Aimee Bullimore on the excellent staging and directing of this highly amusing play which somehow never seems to date.  All the cast came over as comfortable in their roles and the reaction from a pretty full house was genuinely enthusiastic

The play is set just before and during a cricket match. Roger, Tim Ede, is the captain of this motley group of sportsmen and doesn’t he know it!! He flatters his team of players wheedling them into getting his own way whilst bullying his wife unmercifully. She, Pam Stringer, is this ‘little woman’ personified running back and forth to please him whilst organising the teas etc. but by the end of one afternoon the ‘worm has turned’ and the captain certainly doesn’t control her ‘ship’ any more. Bob, Tony Lewis, divorced and re-married was having great problems coping with the new and the ex, telling lies to all and sundry. The new, Becky Wilson, certainly wasn’t interested in cricket and was equally disinterested in her husband. Dennis, John Stovold, had very different wife problems. She wanted to move house and considered cricket a waste of time. He, on the other hand, enjoyed the game which gave him ample opportunity to chat up the other females and had no intention of moving away. Alex, a solicitor, Rob Henry, arrived late for the match accompanied by a GoGo dancer played by Simone Munroe, he had picked up the night before. A cricket match was not her type of scene and she certainly wasn’t dressed for the event. And that leaves Kevin, Peter Woodman, and his wife Maggie, Tracey Shaughnessy who between them stole this show for me. He was a wimp, slightly effeminate, She was a sex starved rather masculine woman and quite brilliant. Every time she walked onto the stage she was riveting and had the audience in fits of laughter. Their scene with the blister on his bowling finger was brilliant and her costume change had to be seen to be believed.

The entire show was a huge success, the costumes perfect in every respect, and the fixed set depicting a pavilion worked really well. The use of the centre of the hall as a walk way to the cricket pitch was a very clever idea making the whole event realistic and the three people sitting below the stage watching and applauding the match added realism to the setting. The sound and lighting teams did a good job and the front of house crew made us feel very welcome. The whole was a thoroughly enjoyable evening

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