Wild Goose Chase

Wild Goose Chase written by Derek Benfield in the 1950s as a contemporary farce set in a baronial castle. It covers the story of Chester Dreadnought (played in this production by Wayne Young) who bluffs his way into the crumbling stately home of an aristocratic family. A trigger-happy Earl, played by David Ryder, who is suffering from hallucinations, cannot keep at bay the delivery of a number of telegrams delivered by the local postman or an enterprising pair of jewel thieves who are pursuing an incriminating photograph of a jewellery heist. A suit of armour and a secret door, mistaken identities and a dotty servant called Ada, played by April Ryder, all help to provide the variety of fare that goes in bringing this production to the stage.

There were a steady stream of random guests, mainly uninvited by Lady Elrood played by Janet Williams, who were portrayed with a multitude of different accents and each arrived with their own quirky characterisations. Miss Partridge played by Alison Heward kept me very entertained as the dotty archaeologist, although as in a number of farces a character completely superfluous to driving the plot forward. Grace Turner (as Jenny) deserves special recognition, as she displayed all the emotions of a love struck 17-year-old and maintained her Scottish accent throughout the entirety of the piece.

The Postman played by Josh Grahame and Wedgewood, one of the jewel thieves, played by Malcolm Congreve, are non-speaking roles but this didn’t stop them owning their scenes with good facial expressions and mannerisms to express each of their characters.

I like to see attention to detail in productions and thought the quick make up change to provide Miss Partridge with a black eye was particularly effective.

The performance of the evening must go to Wayne Young who played the pivotal role of Chester and for steering the story through the complexities of the farce. The delivery of his dialogue was clear, delivered with the necessary speed without a prompt and had clear definition in the myriad of disguises adopted.

The audience enjoyed the energetic and humorous chases, which assisted in maintaining pace and momentum and the surprise of Chester hiding in a suit of armour in Act 2 and pretending to be a working lamp in Act 3 all added the hilarity of the evening.

The set was suitably impressive with the reality of stonewalls, the detail of the door architraves and credit to Andrew Turner (the set designer) in bringing a baronial castle to life, which enhanced the overall effect of the production.

Wild Goose Chase brought a smile to my face, even if it was hidden behind the compulsory mask I was wearing and deserved the support of a much larger audience. There have been any obstacles for Michaela Turner (the Director) and the production team to overcome in the past 18 months to bring this farce to its audience, including on the evening that I attended not being able to access the laptop containing the sound effects that had been locked in a safe overnight. Well done to the team at Attfield for pulling together to ensure that the show could go on.

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