Party Piece

~~The scene of the play is set in the adjacent suburban gardens of Mrs Hinson, Jo Walker, and Michael and Roma Smethurst, Tony Smith and Jackie Foster. One is still more or less as it was originally built but the other has been "improved" by DIY expert Michael Smethurst, with items often salvaged from local skips. While Mrs Hinson entertains her son David, Paul Foster, in one garden, Michael renovates yet another object in the other.
 
Michael and Roma are planning a house-warming party but they find they've left the food too long in the freezer and it is totally frozen and they don’t have a microwave. Mrs Hinson listens at the spy hole in the fence to the goings on next door.

Later on chatting between gardens, Michael informs David of the party. He says there is a fancy dress theme for the party but with famous people dressing in reverse. As the play progresses we see the “niggle” between Jennifer Hinson, Claire Dunbar, and the mother-in-law develop keenly. I've brought you some flowers, says Jennifer, but you needn't bother, they'll probably die.

By the interval Jennifer has become so exasperated with Mrs Hinton that in order to prevent herself using the Zimmer in a way it wasn't intended, she throws it over the garden fence in a fit of rage as the curtain falls on the first half.

Act two opens later that afternoon when the garden is ready, the barbecue is eventually lit and Michael and Roma, dressed as Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers "in reverse" celebrate with a first drink. After several phone calls from people who all of a sudden "couldn't make it" for one reason or another, the first of the guests does actually arrive; Toby, James Batchelor, dressed as the "Man in White" (not in reverse as he has no partner). Sandra Lloyd-Meredith, Sandy – Sue Smith, another guest, helps herself to a drink and meets the gaze of Toby. In the background there were complications about the street parking, the sounds of car and van horns can be heard.

While Michael and Roma have words in the lounge, Jennifer asks for the Zimmer back and Sandy duly obliges, passing it over the high fence. David, who by this time had called round to fetch the Zimmer, gets invited in for a drink in a gesture of neighbourliness, but I also suspect, to swell the rather diminished numbers at the party.

A wayward spark from the barbecue lights Michael's wig and he appears from behind the shed with his hair on fire. The wig gets removed and after a brief journey round the stage, ends up in the Hinson's pond. He goes to ask for it back just as Mrs Hinson appears at the party looking for her son. Mean while Sandy and Toby pop next door to explore.
 
There followed a series of events in which Sandy is rescued from the bathroom after crashing through the faulty door; Toby collapses through a broken deck chair and Michael staggers across the stage, catapulted by Toby, into the drainpipe which covers him in water.
In the middle of the bedlam, Mrs Hinson is serenely making a pot of tea and when she empties the dregs over the prized shrub it is the final straw that causes Michael to see red and call the fated party to a close.

We are left with Roma forlornly sitting at the bottom of the garden burning a last sparkler as the lights fade. The pleasures of neighbourly life!

A good entertaining evening well appreciated by a fine audience! Well done!

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