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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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A matter of laugh and death
Richard Taylor as Evelyn with Lynn Ravenhill as Mrs McGee with her friend Mr Daniels in rehearsal Corpse The Nonentities The Rose Theatre, Kidderminster ***** IF ANYONE
decides to do a stage version of Kind
Hearts and Coronets then Richard Taylor
is your man to play the D'Ascoyne family – all eight of them – after his
romp through this Gerald Moon black comedy. Taylor plays the brothers Farrant, identical
twins – apart from the fact Evelyn is more “heroically equipped” than
his brother Rupert. Rupert is rich, sophisticated, successful, a
collector of fine art and lives in a swish, art deco London apartment. Evelyn is a resting, i.e. unemployed, thespian
who lives in a state of permanent penury and is reduced to dressing in
drag and going off shoplifting for food, and fine wine of course, in
Fortnum & Mason – one has to have some standards even when thieving. Although in Evelyn's mind he is not stealing
merely helping Fortum's contribution to Socialism by a redistribution of
wealth. He lives in a cramped one room basement flat
where he is behind on the rent and where the amorous widowed landlady
Mrs McGee, played beautifully by Lynn Ravenhill, has ideas of a
horizontal nature as to how Evelyn might come to some arrangement over
the arrears as her life drifts gently along somewhere between tipsy and
trollied. Evelyn's solution from his financial predicament
is the brother he hates and luckily for Taylor playing both parts, the
feeling from Rupert is mutual. So an odd incidence to fratricide
allowing struggling actor to step into the hand made, finely crafted
shoes of a successful, but dead, brother might be just what the doctor,
or at least poverty ordered. So to carry out the deadly deed Evelyn employs
Major Powell, played with an air of confused incompetence by Tom Rees.
Irishman Powell's only real attribute as a hired assassin is that he
needs the money, which is hardly the best recommendation for a hit man. The Major gets more and more flustered, and
funnier and funnier, as he finds he is in the midst of a real murder,
and is indeed the real murderer. His clean up of the flat is a comic
gem. Making things even more complicated is the
friendly, neighbourhood, bobby PC Hawkins, played with officialdom's
familiarity by James Stevens, who thinks nothing of popping up to
Rupert's apartment particularly if there are policeman's ball or raffle
tickets to sell.
In a plot that twists and turns like a March hare
on speed we get four murders, or possibly not, and two bodies, as least
they are probably dead, along with as a well-executed sword fight with a
major who it transpires is not all he seems, three shootings, a crashed
Bugatti and blinis – courtesy of Fortnum & Mason - prepared before your
very eyes on stage. Director Stephen Downing keeps up a cracking pace
on a splendid set built by Keith Higgins and Mike Lawrence and their
team. But it is the cast who make it. Lynn Ravehill,
last seen as the nosy suspect Mrs Swetterham in A Murder is Announced,
manages the surprisingly difficult portrayal of a lady who is the worse
for wear for drink with some skill. Playing drunk is easy, playing drunk
convincingly, as she did, is a different game altogether. Nonentities regular Tom Rees as the Major, or at
least we think he's a major, bumbles along, stealing anything not nailed
down from force of habit, a con man who is never quite in control of
what is going on around him and with the resigned look of one of life's
perpetual losers. Then there is Richard Taylor who warmed up for
this role as the corpse in A Murder is Announced where he showed
a stiff upper lip, lower lip, face, neck . . . . Here he is the flamboyant, Shakespeare-quoting
failed actor as well as the more reserved, suave and erudite businessman
managing to play the two with enough differences to keep them separated
in the minds of the audience yet with enough similarities to make them
believe the far-fetched murder plot with Evelyn taking over his
brother's life might actually work. A mention too for Chris Kay playing Walter Plinge
– I thought dear old Walter played himself? - who in turn played the
corpse or bits of corpse when needed for logistical purposes, i.e. to
cover Richard Taylor's inability to be in two places at once. Gerald Moon's play, first performed in 1984, was
set on 11 December 1936, the day Edward VIII's reign ended and he made
his abdication speech to the nation on the BBC. I suppose it is a parallel plotline with one
brother replacing another, abdication rather than assassination in this
case, but, along with references to two bob taxi fares and rent arrears
of three pounds and change, it does tend to date the play and give it a
period feel which is a little incongruous – 80s humour in a 30s setting. Still that does not detract from what is a highly
entertaining evening which had an audience leaving with smiles on their
faces saying how much they had enjoyed it - and you can't ask for more
than that. To 27-04-13 Roger Clarke |
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