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Swap!
Grand Theatre,Wolverhampton
**** FARCE has moved on since those old
Whitehall days of trousers falling down and actors darting in and out of
multiple doors on stage. This new comedy,
written and directed by Ian Ogilvy, star of
Return of the Saint,
has a more modern slant with funeral director Brian Flowers and his
wife, Susan, arriving from their Wimbledon home at a Marbella villa in
an exchange holiday scheme. What they didn’t know was that the Spanish
property belongs to a British gangster, bodies start to pile up in some
hilarious situations as the hapless couple and brother-in-law Jeremy
feel the heat. Just to ensure no-one in the audience takes it
all too seriously there is a panel about farce in the official programme
explaining that it is a form of comedy aiming to entertain through
situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant and thus,
improbable. Spot on. David Callister, of
The Bill
fame, slots perfectly into the role of bumbling Brian, with Freya
Copeland (Emmerdale)
impressive as his wife, particularly in an early scene where she gets to
grips with the first of half a dozen bodies that will appear by the time
a very clever shoot-out has bullets flying everywhere. Some very good comedy spots, too, from Patric
Kearns (Jeremy) and Louisa Lytton, the attractive gun-toting Coral. A show that’s dead funny, if you don’t take it
seriously, runs to 02-07-16 Paul Marston 28-06-16
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