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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Gloriously silly fun An Evening of Victorian Melodrama, Murder, Mystery & Mayhem
Moorpool Players
**** MOORPOOL Players are the company that put
the ham in ‘amateur theatricals when they delve into their evenings of
Victorian melodrama. Melodrama is a largely forgotten art, you will be
relieved to know, interminable plots with dubious scripts full of
endless, unrelenting misery piled upon misery and kept alive these days
only in EastEnders and Moorpool Hall. Introduced by the Moorpool Players chairman John
Healey, esquire, a sort of melancholy master of ceremonies – think of a
lugubrious Leonard Sachs – we are treated to three examples of the
theatre of desolation from the pen of Mr Brian J Burton. The original plays, with their wicked squires,
mill owners, landlords and so on, attempting to have their wicked way
with attractive but penniless young wives/daughters/granddaughters (any
young totty will do) made destitute by circumstance, and usually
involving a drunkard of a husband, brother, father etc who has either
been wrongly accused or already convicted, jailed, transported to
Australia etc. – miscarriage of justice were always a favourite – and
whose only chance of salvation comes in the shape of help from the
aforementioned squire/mill owner/landlord in return for a small favour
of the horizontal persuasion. In general, alas, alack, woe is me, the language
is forced, the plots not so much signposted as presented with a satnav
location and to modern eyes and ears they appear absurd. So with such a good start already, Burton writes
in that peculiar Victorian style, but stretching the already stretched
plotlines that little bit further, adding even more ludicrous dialogue
and throwing in a few double entendres to boot. The result is a
collection of particularly silly and hopelessly dire playlets opening
with a catalogue of catastrophe and despair and all ending with the
rogues rumbled, a ladies’ honour saved and all living happily ever after
- apart from the squire etc.
Audience participation is obligatory, hiss boo
and all that, along with heckling and shouts of advice and witty
comments. On stage the acting is . . . well let us say Olde Oake sell it in a tin; in truth bad would have been an improvement, which, in a roundabout way, is a compliment. The stilted, stylised dialogue, littered with words found only in the most remote corners of Roget’s Thesaurus, must have been a nightmare to learn while the required melodrama style - loudly whispered asides behind the hand, woe is me forearm across the brow, heart rending gestures to accompany even more heart rending speeches – is not easy to pull off convincingly but the cast mange it with aplomb. It has to look bad, which is a long way from actually being bad, and the cast of 11 were very good at looking bad with some fine performances displaying the forgotten arts of yesteryear. We opened with The Drunkard’s Wife or
The Tables Turned. I won’t give the plot away, it does that itself
within the first few minutes where we see Millie Bell, played by Miss
Emma Suffield (everyone has a title in this byway of Victoriana)
and her mother played by Mrs Mary Ruane, starving and rueing their
poverty with Willie Bell – no prizes for guessing the double entendre
possibilities there - played by Mr Derek Lee, Millie’s wastrel husband,
down the local alehouse spending the pittance Millie makes sewing
shrouds – even the work is steeped in misery. Enter Sir Eustace Makepeace, played by The Rev Mr
Mark Earey, who makes a splendid Victorian villain complete with a
collection of dastardly disguises and a lust for Millie, and a stage
whisper that could wake the dead. He almost succeeded in his vile
machinations, until Willie, played by Mr Derek Lea, appeared booted and
suited and a changed man, a fine husband and son once more. The excitement and drama caused many a lady in
the audience to suffer an attack of the vapours which needed a glass of
wine, piece of cake, ice cream and perusal of second hand books to aid
recovery before the second offering of The Night Before Christmas
or Saved From the Cold, Cold Snow. Here little(ish) Prudence, played by Miss Emma
Suffield, was out in the snow, sitting on the steps of the local
alehouse, begging for farthings to keep body and soul - and
grandparent’s – alive.
Her grandparents, Gertrude, played by Mrs Linda
Robinson, confined to a wheelchair, and Joseph, Mr Daniel Birch, a
stooped and bent broken man, were being deceived into selling their
tiny(ish), starving(ish), waif(ish) of a grandchild to Lady P, played by
Mrs Joyce Williams, a female rogue - Lady P not Mrs Williams - who had
falsely accused the father of Prudence of fraud and had him transported
to Botany Bay where he had been hanged for murder. . . or had he? The arrival of Father Christmas, played by Mr
Lea, who seems to be making a career of playing wrongly accused family
members returning in triumph in the final scene, changes everything. He
is in reality Prudence’s father who has been proved innocent and he
exposes Lady P as the evil woman she is, confirmed when Mr Mathew Birch
arrives as an Officer of the Law to drag Lady P away. The final drama, with violence and threats
aplenty, is Mayhem at the Mill, where Vera Goodheart, played by
Mrs Claire Wingfield, is enticed to a meeting by her uncle Saul, Mr
Andrew Miles, in an old, dark, deserted saw mill. Saul brings with him Obidiah, played Mr Matthew
Birch, a man who has not feasted well at nature’s table of intellect –
two short planks springs to mind. The pair, looking like extras from a
budget remake of Moby Dick in sou’westers, have a huge dog offstage
which sounds like . . . well, a man with bronchitis to be honest. As usual our heroine has been lured into a trap
as her uncle tries to first trick her out of her inheritance from her
dead father and then attempts the less subtle persuasion of a saw table
and a threat of a split personality, and split everything else, to get
his way. Vera is true to herself though, having pledged
the money to help orphans (everyone say ahhh – which most people did),
and got her reward when Edward Trump, Mr Daniel Birch again, who had
escorted her to the deserted sawmill, arrived in the nick of time with
the villagers, who looked remarkably like the other characters of the
evening, to rescue Vera and capture the wrongdoers, allowing the by now
near frantic audience to rest easy on their way home. This is the second evening of Victorian Melodrama
and to enhance the 19th century atmosphere Moorpool install
footlights with their distinctive low angle lighting with Mr Daniel
Birch and Mrs Laura Bunster singing a selection of music hall songs in a
singalong between plays. Direction is by John Healey, who also provides
the droll introductions to each item and the result is a glorious
evening of remarkable silly fun with truly dreadful plays and scripts,
over the top acting and laughs a plenty. Wonderful entertainment. To
22-11-14 Roger Clarke
20-11-14 |
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