The Good Life Live On Stage!

Thank you for the warm welcome at Guildhall Arts Centre Grantham last night for your final performance of The Good Life. Lovely to see Rosemary Gibson and Nick Elliott, the directors, at the start of the evening. The front of house team were lovely and welcoming. (Andy Antony, Sharon Antony, Tracy Beck, Carole Brown, Mrk Brown, John Foulkes Jones, Kat Hovell Limmer, Tony Jackson, Margaret Kendall, Ann McInerney, and Gilly Vincent, sold raffle tickets and welcomed the audience, which was lovely.)

The Good Life is a quintessentially British sitcom from the 1970s that has been reimagined on stage with this witty script. In the fancy suburbs of London, Tom Good is having a midlife crisis thanks to turning the grand old age of 40. He and his wife Barbara take the drastic decision to leave their middle class, monotonous lives and become completely self-sufficient. This is to the absolute horror of their even posher next door neighbours Margo and Jerry.  They are clearly ahead of their time as living a greener life is more important than ever. After leaving their jobs and keeping their home, they grow their own food, rear their own back yard farm animals, and make their own clothes.  Dinner parties, next door house redecoration, piglets, and eventually the neighbours needing to stay at The Goods house meant that the play brings moments from several of the TV episodes, which some might remember, including Geraldine the escape Goat artist who is brought to life on stage through puppetry. Well done Daniele Petruzzo, very well managed.

We didn’t see impersonations of the actors from the TV show, but I enjoyed each performance and think it was cast well. Kirk Bowett is clearly a very talented actor and shines as cheerful Tom Good. Gemma Dove plays Barbara demonstrated a loving naturing soul with added strength and determination. Although she had a lot of props to utilise I feel this distracted her from her acting performance.  The only time we really saw any real passion was when she was so disappointed with Tom’s attitude to the little runt piglet.

Paul Dexter is likeable as Jerry, the henpecked husband and friendlier neighbour of the two. Helen Pack nails the snobby persona of Margo who is always busy doing nothing and trying to be as pretentious as possible. Helen has really developed her acting since I last saw her on stage.  Full characterisation and she embodied snobby, self-centred side of Margo. I also loved her outfits, and different hairstyles. (Victoria Dexter manged to dress the show very well.)

Yes, this play is on the slower side, and maybe some of the lines don’t land as well as they may have done on television, in fact considering it was the last night of the run, I could hear the dulcet tones of Briony Sparrow (the prompt) far more than I would have wished. If you had known the play better you could have got yourselves out of the hole you were in. Particularly the piglet scene and the start of the last scene when Tom and Barbara were sitting on the sofa. I wish you had all sounded more confident, perhaps a few more weeks in rehearsals would have helped you nail them.  It is a witty play that takes you back in time to when British comedy was at its pinnacle. But mostly the lack of pace, the slow scene changes and unconfident performances meant that for me the play lacked humour. The show titters along and there are laughs to be had but nothing ground-breaking or belly hurting, but mostly it is quaint and nostalgic.

Izzy Lopez, Jo Toomey, Matthew Brookes, Paide Perry, Daniele Petruzzo played the other roles of the office yes men at Jerry’s office, and Izzy played the Pig lady and Milkwoman with skill. Jo was well cast as Dr Jo. The policeman and Mary were a delightful couple, played by Matthew and Paige, their chemistry on stage was good. Gus Sparrow and Laura Wilkinson played Andrew and Felicity Ferguson well. Their funny lines and characters were well formed, and they added value to every scene they were in.

The split set was very clever, showing The Goods stage left complete with Aga, welsh dresser, and sink unit, whilst stage right we saw the Leadbetter’s living room. Cleverly lit and the sound quality was very good. Set design and build – Tom Mckay and Martin Brewin. Very well done, doors, windows and everything worked well.  Pyrotechnics were managed by Jo Toomey which enhanced the action, great fun!  Stage manager Alan Betton had a lot of props to strike and put on, as each scene seemed to require a long time to change.  I appreciate that the original show incorporated a revolving stage, but perhaps streamlining some of the props might have enabled you to do the scene changes more quickly.  The final change took over 4 minutes, two audience members left, thinking it was the end of the show! You came off at 10.20pm which could easily have been 10, but for the lack of pace and the long changes. Something to consider for future production perhaps.

The printed programme was excellent, I really enjoyed reading the information you included. It is good to see you promoting your society and local business and I will enter it into the NODA competition. The photographs were lovely (Tom McKay) and the promotion for the production was very good. I look forward to seeing your next production and would reiterate three recommendations to improve your overall performance.

1. Nail those lines. Aim to be off your book at least a month before production, this allows your director to enhance your performance with more characterisation, subtle moves, and looks, more enhanced interaction between characters. This should happen during the rehearsal period when you do not have your books in your hands.
2. Don’t have a prompt. This means that your players have to learn their lines, they have to know other people’s lines and they have to get themselves out of difficulties. It is not enough to know your own lines, you need to be able to help each other out and you do this by knowing where the scene is going, who leads the action, and who has dried.  Too much reliance on a prompt slows the action, breaks character, and distracts the audience. Being a generous actor, by supporting each other on stage will increase everyone’s confidence and enhance your performance.
3. Props – get the props, or similar items early. Practise utilising them, practice striking and setting them – spend time practising doing the scene changes or perhaps design the play so that these changes can be done more efficiently. Even 30 seconds seems like a long time when you are in the audience. I know you don’t get into the theatre until the performance week, yet trying scene changes out in your rehearsal space, I feel this will help with the flow of the show.

I have mentioned these three elements in past show reports. I really hope that you can take this on board for your 2023 production and I look forward to seeing you all then.

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