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Birds still flying high
Back on tour: Dorien (Lesley Joseph), Sharon (Pauline Quirke) and Tracey (Linda Robson) Birds of a
Feather Belgrade
Theatre *****
What a privilege to be at the very first
wonderful night of the 2013 tour of such an enjoyable show. If you loved
Birds of a Feather
on the It's still
daisy fresh, a bit plot-light but it doesn't matter, the magic still
exists and the first night audience rewarded the cast with a
well-deserved standing ovation. It's virtually a laugh a line
– a reprise of the bitchy class rivalry of Sharon and Dorien with Tracey
as go-between. It's an interesting point about class fighting styles and
Dorien labels the sisters ‘The Real EastEnders'. To an EastEnder (such
as me) Chigwell is posh and the ‘des res' is a vestige of Tracey's
marriage to Darryl from the proceeds of a swimming pool business with a
bit of scallywagging on the side. The plot involves the
reawakening of the friendship between the sisters and Dorien (stll
glamorous) now divorced and owner of a retirement home, ‘Cherish' for
the well–off elderly, where the Polish staff has left en masse so
she recruits Sharon and Tracey as admin and cook. This leads by a comically
circuitous route to the untimely demise of an elderly and well-heeled
‘guest', and Dorien's favourite, Mr Zimmerman. He had recently changed
his will in Dorien's favour so the family and the Met are on her tail
for poisoning him. The subplot of Tracey's son
(born in the final episode of the The scene changes were well
used, with some doddering inmates setting up a Bingo and Karaoke scene.
Then the second scene change has those wonderful whirling newspaper
front pages – in a wonderful touch The Guardian has spelt poison as
poisson! There are some moments of pure
magic – too many to recount but a flavour might be when Dorien calls
Sharon the ‘Poster girl for the British underclass' which she takes as a
compliment! Jane Howard
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