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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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Lesley, the unwitting porn actress, played by Linda Phillips Talking Heads
Moorpool Players, Moorpool Hall
***** A VICAR’S wife with a penchant for the
communion wine, a jailed busybody, a repressed gay mother’s boy and a
naive porn actress – in short a night at a packed Moorpool Hall. Amateur theatre never
fails in its propensity to surprise. At one end, and thankfully rare,
are the unrehearsed versions of The
play that goes wrong, at the other, the
o Talking Heads
from Moorpool Players is one such, four very different characters linked
only by four equally accomplished performances. Talking Heads being the series of six monologues Alan Bennett wrote for BBC TV in 1988, all set in his native Leeds.
Written initially for the close up intimacy of the TV screen, a one on one medium, the transfer to the stage has seen them as favourites for the equally intimate surroundings of studio productions, so directors John Healey and Norma Mason have done well to transfer that necessary closeness to the audience, as if the characters are speaking personally just to you, on to a larger stage. They are not jokes mind, just asides, or
comments, eccentricities and manners of the four disparate characters. First up was
Bed Among the Lentils
with Liz Bridgewater as vicar’s wife Susan whose devotion to her maker
was somewhat more limited than her devotion to cheap sherry and
communion wine. A devotion which leads her to Mr Ramesh Ramesh’s
shop in Leeds – mainly because of her rather large debts at the village
off licence by the church – which in turn leads her to an extramarital
affair with the slim, 26-year-old, hockey playing Ramesh in a storeroom
among the lentils. It is a beautifully measured performance,
littered with glorious throwaway lines as we see, through her, the
parish and the politics of the C of E, there is the vicar’s fan club
among the upstanding ladies of the
Bridgewater manages to get just the right balance
between laughs and pathos to bring Susan to life. Tricia Martin bristles with wonderful indignation as Irene Ruddock, A Lady of Letters, a lonely, interfering, seemingly friendless, interfering woman who has a strong view on everything around her, usually right wing, and is quite willing to speak her mind, or more accurately, write her mind to all and sundry with any minor transgression, real or imagined, a cause to reach for her trusty Platinum pen and let fly.
Even a suspended sentence after a particularly
misguided series of accusations against a neighbour is not enough to
hold her and her pen back, which sees Irene incarcerated in jail, where,
irony of ironies, she at last finds happiness and freedom.
In
Chip in the Sugar
Mark Earey’ Graham is a much sadder character in a part that demands
sensitivity. Graham is a repressed homosexual with a history of mental
problems who, apart from a spell in a hostel, still lives at home with
his 72-year-old mother. It might not be an ideal relationship, but it is
stable, and has the crutch and comfort of being routine which is what
Graham craves, until old flame Frank Turnbull turns up, sweeping mam off
her feet, proposing marriage and, horror, suggesting Graham should move
out. But all is not as it seems and Graham is
triumphant as he reveals Frank’s secret, a secret which devastates his
mam, but returns everything to nor Sad is not something
that can be said about Lesley, Linda Phillips’ character. She is an
aspiring actress with a series of completely unmemorable walk on parts
in film and TV, you may have seen her as the third woman in shawl from
the left at the back of a passing cart in Roman Polanski’s
Tess, the
highlight of her career so far. A chance encounter at a
party brings Her big chance,
the part of Travis in a low budget film being made for the West German
market.
Lesley, who has a suggestion for her character, milking and hopefully expanding her part for every scene, is persuaded first to go topless, then bottomless, all to enhance the artistic integrity of her part - or so she is told . . . the pigs must be flying low today. Presumably for artistic reasons, on completion of
the film she ends up in bed with Gunther, the director. Phillips makes
her a bubbly character, an actress in parts so minor they are merely
decoration in the background, yet who still wants to give them meaning,
or in this particular case needs meaning to do them. Naïve, sweet and, from the times she appears to
end up in bed, somewhat accommodating, we are still not clear at the end
if Lesley actually realised she had been in a soft porn film as she
talks about her big break. It’s a nicely paced tale of a none too bright
actress with aspirations of a stardom that will probably never be
fulfilled beyond roles in low budget porn. The four characters are all different, with the
excellent portrayals creating people who come to life. Each brim full
with gentle humour, along with traits of sadness, loneliness and, in the
case of Lesley, hope. Every one interesting and built up skillfully. It was a packed house on opening night and the
cast of four served up a treat in what was a most enjoyable evening with
quality writing, excellent acting and first class entertainment. To
21-05-16 Roger Clarke 18-05-16 |
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parish
and the Church’s love of conferences on the Church’s role in some
unthought of area of life, such as . . . underfloor heating. Then there
is her husband’s delight at having an alcoholic wife, someone who he
could actually claim to have saved with the help of God - even if it was
Mr Ramesh who had set her on the road to redemption by asking if she had
to be three sheets to the wind to have sex with him.
mal
for him. Earey gives us a son who is petulant, paranoid and more
dependant upon his mother, the only relationship he has, than she on
him. A glorious pictures of a sad, lonely man.