Wife After Death

This comedy was the perfect choice for WADS, performing Tuesdays and Thursdays for a six week period over the course of the traditional “Summer Season”, at the Pavilion Theatre. It is the day of Dave Thursby’s funeral. Dave, a comedian, a TV star and a national treasure, has died rather unexpectedly and the action opens as mourners gather at his lavish and up-market town house to say their goodbyes around the open coffin. We meet the Barrett’s, Harvey (Ian Dobson), Dave’s writer and closest friend and his wife Vi, (Anne Dobson). Both gave confident and assured performances, as their different love, and loathing, for Dave is unravelled. Devastated by Dave’s untimely death is his wife Laura (Katrina Stead), whose flamboyant and fragrant character was left further bereft by the appearance of Kay (Alison Steele), Dave’s undisclosed first wife. And so it would seem his friends and family knew rather less about Dave than they had originally imagined. Trying to keep Dave’s image intact is his Agent, Kevin Prewitt (Chris Wales), and revelations about his wife, Jane’s (Danielle Bird) antics with Dave are just a further inconvenience in trying to ensure Dave’s ongoing legacy of TV Repeats. The twists and turns of this comedy were well played out and whilst some of the one-liners were, at times, predictable, I particularly enjoyed the “business” surrounding the scattering of the ashes - it was well timed and well executed. Indeed WADS gave their appreciative audience an evening of love and laughter, and in the midst of said audience on the evening I attended was Wife After Death’s writer, Eric Chappell - an honour both for the cast and the Society as a whole.

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