The Drowsy Chaperone

The Drowsy Chaperone is a superb production of a show within a show. We start with the unnamed ‘Man in the Chair’ who tells of his love for musical theatre, and one show in particular ‘The Drowsy Chaperone’, and switches on his record player whilst he imagines the action of the show played out in his living room.

Where the show soars or falls is in the right blend of cliches, and gags told by over the top characters and vocal libretto and of course a brilliant ‘Man in the Chair’ but more on that later.

The premise of the story as in all good musical theatre is an upcoming wedding of showgirl ‘Janet Van de Graaf’ (Lindsay Kellegher) and ‘Robert Martin’ (Andrew Howe). Both characters were believable together and musical numbers were sung well by both with some surprising lyrics, Lindsays song about a monkey along with ensemble in monkey head mask was surreal to say the least.
Of course set in 1928 ‘Janet’ had to be kept away from her groom ‘Robert’ until the wedding – a task bestowed up the ‘drowsy’ (aka inebriated) chaperone played wonderfully by Andrea Riley with fine vocal in her singing. Theatre entrepreneur, ‘Feldzeig’ (Gareth Lilley) is determined to stop the wedding going ahead as he will lose his star from his show, ‘Janet’. Gareth maintained a demeanour of confidence throughout his scenes even when threatened by the two ‘heavies’ acting on behalf of his shows backers – these two heavies were played by real life brothers Steve and Mark Nichol with suitable cliched ‘menace’ on their behalf.

‘Feldzeig’ hires self-confessed ‘latin lover’ ‘Adolpho’ (Simon Devin) to try and have and affair with Janet whilst Best man of the couple ‘George’ (Michael Costelloe-Ferguson) was equally determined to allow the wedding to go ahead. Both characters were larger than life. Of course as in all good musical theatre tradition there is some ‘unknown’ waiting to fit into the shoes of leading lad – that person is Kitty (Ruby Mellon) with suitable ditzy demeanour.

The wedding is to take place at the estate of Mrs Tottendale (Lisa Barnes) who along with her servant appropriately named ‘Underling’ (Laurence Scott) led to some of the funniest action as a ‘scratch on the record’ leads to a bit of the scene being played continuously. You could tell Lisa and Laurence were having fun as they played it – so were the audience.

Two characters with smaller supporting roles but nevertheless integral to the production was ‘Trix, The Aviatrix’ (Lisa Hopper) who as ‘captain’ of her plane can legally marry the four couple eventually getting married when it is discovered that ‘George’ the Best man hasn’t booked a priest for the ceremony.
The building ‘Superintendent’ (Daniel Fenwick) appears briefly to reset the lights when they trip right in the middle of an important scene – the scene continuing and completing as soon as the breakers were reset.

Dancers and ensemble were made up by Rachael Carr, Samantha Coxon, Stacey Duggan, Erin Kellegher, Izzy Simpson Brittany Tilling, Barbara Waugh and Leanne Wrightson.

Now did I forget anyone?

Oh yes ‘The Man in the Chair’ (Kevin Riley) – quite simply outstanding, brilliant, magnificent. I could think of all the superlatives to describe Kevin’s role and they still would not do him justice. For the show to work the ‘Man in the chair’ has to be the lynchpin of the production – the OTT characters of the musical are all but naught if the Man in the Chair doesn’t match them, double their energy and play on their insecurities.

Kevin breaking the fourth wall throughout held a dialogue with the audience as he described various scenes and told us what to look out for. It was all played with an overtly ‘camp’ demeanour and acerbic one liners, all delivered with impeccable timing. Even when the action was taking place on the stage, and he was wallowing in his chair enjoying his record and the focus was not on him he made it a masterclass in acting. The scene where he was nibbling on a fondue cake stolen surreptitiously from one of the two heavies was truly wonderful.

This production, not done all that often is a hidden gem and Caprians mined that gem, cut it and polished it immaculately – Well done….

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