Look out behind you . . . for real

Jack, played by Katy Stephens and the front half of the cow

Oh No it isn’t!

B2 Belgrade Coventry

*****

Oh yes it is! It’s a thumpingly good, very funny, very clever, slightly risqué tour de force with some very pleasing actory references.

In fact we whistlestop from Michael Frayn’s Noises Off through a homage to Agatha Christie to the ‘impossible’ scene from Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs  - all in an hour!

It’s backstage at the alternative Jack and the Beanstalk and Daisy the Cow (Richard Kidd and John McKeever) has lost her gun. While ‘she’ hunts for it, poor desperate Jack (aka Jackie – Katy Stephens) is left to ham it up on stage with an increasingly restive audience baying for blood. The little giant (aka Sal - Clare Louise Connolly) dressed as an elf finds it and shoots her – confused? You will be . . .

As the relief of the interval arrives and Jackie has remained prone and lifeless on stage the rest of the cast, split into two factions – elf giant and back of cow versus Jack Jackie and front of cow – plan the perfect murder – each faction has a different victim in mind and both have to outsmart the other to fulfill their evil aim.

To say that Jackie has made enemies in her personal and professional life would be seriously understating the case and from small acquaintance Jackie wouldn’t understate anything . . . And it’s a member of the audience who becomes her bemused and hapless victim.

Jackie is her turn is the preferred victim of the other faction – kill or be killed, the big philosophical question. The action becomes frenetic and confused until the denouement. Well, suffice it to say, we never expected THAT! I loved all the contexting references about Coventry – and so did the audience who, if I’m not mistaken – and I’m not, included the cast of Jack and the Beanstalk from the main house – it wasn’t a quiet show! Written and directed by Nick Walker, it was hugely enjoyable and a great night out. To 28-12-13

Jane Howard 

 

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