The Boy Friend

A musical which was popular in the 1950s The Boyfriend is a show you don’t see being presented often these days. Set in the Roaring Twenties the show opens in the Villa Caprice a Finishing School with Hortense (Patricia Brennan) introducing us to Maisie (Rachel Rogers), Dulcie (Paige Alexandra), Fay (Juliette Strobel)”Perfect Fine Ladies” all the actions and accents were appropriately over the top which added to the comedy. Polly played charmingly by Anne Woodhouse didn’t have a boyfriend to accompany her to the Carnival so she made up one. This led into the title song of the show with a full stage with excellent singing from all and dancing from Shannon Aspin, Sarah Plowman, Lucy Robinson & Elenya Watson. The Choreography throughout the show by Choreographer Janet Fletcher was very good and fitted very well to the theme of the musical.

Bobby (Ned Smith) surprises Maisie and they show us The Charleston enthusiastically dancing around the whole stage. Madame Dubonnet(Sue Morris) was delighted when Polly’s father Percival(Robert Davison) turned up and turned out to be an old flame. These two characters really captured the comedy and the audience particularly liked the sock braces in the Sur Le Plage scene.

When delivering the Pierrette costume for Polly, Tony(Dexter Tikadar) coyly offers to attend as her partner. They suited each other well pretending to be poor not realising they were both rich. Lord Brockhurst(Peter McDonnell) has an eye for the ladies when Lady Brockhurst(Glenis Parker) isn’t around. I liked the comedy meeting of Lord Brockhurst with Percival Brown.

The Carnival scene at the end was very entertaining Fifi, Frou Frou and Francine, ‘danced’ by Janice Dobson, Janet Saville and Sue Varley interrupted or rather disrupted by Stage Crew. The show ended happily ever after

The Staging was very slick with the actors shifting the scenery about unnoticed while the show carried on including various appearances by Stage Crew. Karl Boggis. I must also comment that the costumes were all in fitting with the period.

The singing throughout by the whole company was excellent and accompanied on the piano by Musical Director Patricia Astwood.

The Show was Directed by Steve Tetlow, well done Steve for putting together a very enjoyable show.

The show ended happily and was appreciated by an enthusiastic audience. Well done to all concerned.

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