National Operatic & Dramatic Association London Region
Society : Belmont Theatre
Production : Pardon Me, Prime Minister
Date : 29th October 2015
Be inspired by amateur theatre
Venue : The Pump House Theatre, Watford
Report by : Tony Austin (Regional Rep, District 8)
Show Report
My thanks to Belmont Theatre and to their Regional Rep Bill Baynes (disqualified from reporting on his own Society) for the invitation to make my first visit ever to their somewhat eccentric venue, and to old friend Frankie Hogan (Producer) and more recent acquaintance Michael Collins (Chairman and Director) for their warm welcome, hospitality and supply of information so essential to a visiting Rep.
Despite knowing people and societies who have played there for many years, I had never had the inside of the venue described to me, and the huge width and shallow depth of both the auditorium and the stage came as a surprise. My congratulations to Belmont’s stage designers and constructors over the years in the huge variety of repertoire they present (in this instance represented by Michael Collins and Bill Rebello with assistance from the Company and Scenic Artist Rowena Cutting) on their achievements, including the Cup on display for Best Scenery for Remembrance earlier in the year, and for ensuring that every seat in the house (including my aisle one, requested so my constant scribbling all through doesn’t disturb too many people) has a perfect view, although that must further restrict any activity taking place in the minimal wings. The set we saw was a pleasing representation of the Prime Minister’s office, with a lovely drinks cupboard hidden behind a portrait of Gladstone, and the four separate doors demanded by the script, necessarily two at each end of the stage (not an ideal situation for a farce, but the cast dealt well with the distances involved, and the instantaneous exits and entrances through doors on the same side of the stage were well plotted and executed in true farce tradition). And further congratulations to the young and not so young ladies on their charmingly performed and often prolonged appearances virtually within touching distance of the audience in their underwear (or in one case in just some of it), as demanded by the script written nearly 40 years ago when most performances would have occurred at a safe distance behind a full proscenium arch and often an orchestra pit.
In the absence of any wardrobe credit, I assume cast members were responsible for their own clothes (full marks for the underwear), except for the red dress brilliantly devised to be worn at times by three of their number and looking good in different ways on each of them (well done Director and Producer?). I did feel that in the days before mobile phones (the exact date carefully not specified in the programme) Cabinet Ministers and the Prime Minister’s influential wife would have been a little more smart and stylish. Props by Mary Woolf and Helen Sherwood, including the mock Hansard volumes used briefly as a breastplate (and shortly swapped for the PM’s jacket with modesty preserved) worked well. The involvement of Lighting and Sound (Design Eddie Stephens, Operation Guy Taylor) was minimal, but the telephone ring was barely audible, when in a farce a loud ring designed to make both actors and audience jump and react is much more effective. SMs Bill Rebello and Lorna Alder managed the many entry cues well, with only one occasion when an actor was left pausing before the PM entered. Continuity regrettably found Dawn Harvey giving a considerable number of necessary prompts clearly, perhaps foretold by one rehearsal photo in Mike and Maggie Morrow’s informative programme (photos by Maggie and Britt Rees) showing a character still on script, and in addition we saw and heard not a few stumbles and pauses - for thought and not effect.
The nature of farces often means that the audience has to accept some strange situations as the basis for the comedy, and the position of a weak Prime Minister with a liking for cigarettes and whisky being forced by extremists in his own party into a policy designed to tax all enjoyable things to extinction that Graham Broderick as the PM had to get across to us well fits that bill. Playing the dialogue of the opening scene at lightning speed achieved that end and gave a snappy start, although I would have welcomed a little less speed later in his massive role, to give more time for reactions to farcical surprises (possibly also avoiding the odd fumble with words and the prompts). Essential to virtually every scene, constantly assailed by his Chancellor on one side and surprised and embarrassed by young ladies in their deshabille on the other, his role involved lots of physical activity, with him frequently seen on his knees begging one of the girls (for perfect farce reasons) to take off the red dress and innocently ripping another dress after a dash across stage which ended in a fall. What a performance! And eventually discovering he was not the father of Shirley Springer – what a (temporary) relief!
Bernard Vick as his Chancellor also had some fumbles on being caught out by swift responses until he managed to slow the pace, but got humour from his humourless Scottish insistence on implementing the penal taxation policy in full. Has anyone heard of a Chancellor similarly determined? Perhaps blood tests should be obligatory to deflect such people, and effect a complete change of character, as he displayed after he discovered that his blood group had shown he was an unmarried father.
As Sybil, the PM’s wife, Gillian Weinberg brought another-worldliness to proceedings as she deduced that the red dress in her husband’s hand was to be her birthday present, and that the scantily-clad young ladies were part of her blood donor charity. Her appearances in the red dress and later without it played completely straight were well-judged and hilarious, as were her blood group revelations.
As those young ladies, Tara Pathirana made a great character of Exotic Dancer Shirley Springer, mistaken for a high-class reporter and carrying off the impersonation with aplomb before revealing herself to be the PM’s daughter, not forgetting the stripping to add to the persuasion, while Mary-Anne Anaradoh as Jane Rotherbrook, the real reporter, showed just the right class in her character, only taking off her dress to have it mended (with the temporary repair involving a series of Bulldog clips increasing the fun). Lovely performances adding a great deal to the evening’s enjoyment.
James Byrne as Rodney Campbell, the PM’s Secretary, the other half of the slick opening scene dialogue, played his juvenile character straight, dealing clearly with all eventualities including the impressively smoking desk drawer and the initial mistake over the young ladies’ identities, as well as the arrangements for hiding them or dealing with their clothing. His frequent entry lines “Pardon Me, Prime Minister” were all well acted and expressed; the last (with David Moyes momentarily as a Private Investigator) providing the curtain denouement that PM was his father on his shout of “Daddy”.
Anchal Kausal’s role as bespectacled Miss Frobisher, the Chancellor’s secretary with a crush on Rodney is written to be played straight until she relinquishes her dress and her glasses (no silly schoolgirl hand up when addressing her boss, who wouldn’t have tolerated such a thing), which would have made her comedy scenes in her near blindness with Rodney and the Chancellor even more funny.
Bringing down the first Act curtain and dominating the second with wonderful attack (and recollection), Kim Wedler as Dora Springer, Shirley’s mother, confident from a strategically placed mole that the PM was Shirley’s father, brilliantly provided the backbone lacking in the PM and later, when it became clear that the Chancellor was the father, decided to take him and his socks in for renovation, though even she couldn’t make that seem quite credible!
My wife and I were quite surprised that a play from the 1970s lasted rather less than two hours and a quarter (including the interval) although I suppose there may have been some parts in a script of that age which had had to be excised. I have already indicated my concern that concentrating entirely on speed of dialogue may not give time for appropriate reactions on stage (or even in the audience), and in farce in particular where sudden surprise events or revelations bring one up short, an immediate verbal response with a line memorised from the script may well be less appropriate than a physical reaction (giving both the character and the audience the time to take it in) before delivery of the line. I fancy that Belmont, with considerable experience over the years including occasional farces, may disagree with my view and believe that speed should win – as evidenced by the break between the scenes in each Act, where in Act 1 the curtains had hardly touched before they were opened again, with the action continuing from where it had left off. If the authors had not intended that there should be a break, it could have been played straight through, although that would have lessened the effect of the well-written end of Scene 1. Their intention was surely to have enough of a break to allow the audience to breathe, laugh and relax, and possibly chat about the surprise to their neighbours for a minute or so before the performance resumed. A little background music (not perhaps of the nature of the Monty Python opening fanfare) to bridge the gap and fade when the curtains were about to open again might well be appropriate. Again in Act 2, although the break between scenes was a little longer with things on stage to be rearranged, the re-opening of the curtains appeared rushed and premature to me and I thought would have benefitted from similar treatment, as a welcome rest from the stage frenetics.
Despite those feelings, we spent a most enjoyable evening being entertained by a play we last saw in the week of the 1997 election (Ruislip Dramatic Society making an inspired guess on the date) and being introduced to your Society, obviously popular with an all-but full house giving a very warm reception on the Thursday night, and to your unusual but very comfortable venue. Our thanks to everyone mentioned above and to all those involved in the huge enterprise of the production.
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Society : Belmont Theatre
Production : Pardon Me, Prime Minister
Date : 29th October 2015
Be inspired by amateur theatre
Venue : The Pump House Theatre, Watford
Report by : Tony Austin (Regional Rep, District 8)
Show Report
My thanks to Belmont Theatre and to their Regional Rep Bill Baynes (disqualified from reporting on his own Society) for the invitation to make my first visit ever to their somewhat eccentric venue, and to old friend Frankie Hogan (Producer) and more recent acquaintance Michael Collins (Chairman and Director) for their warm welcome, hospitality and supply of information so essential to a visiting Rep.
Despite knowing people and societies who have played there for many years, I had never had the inside of the venue described to me, and the huge width and shallow depth of both the auditorium and the stage came as a surprise. My congratulations to Belmont’s stage designers and constructors over the years in the huge variety of repertoire they present (in this instance represented by Michael Collins and Bill Rebello with assistance from the Company and Scenic Artist Rowena Cutting) on their achievements, including the Cup on display for Best Scenery for Remembrance earlier in the year, and for ensuring that every seat in the house (including my aisle one, requested so my constant scribbling all through doesn’t disturb too many people) has a perfect view, although that must further restrict any activity taking place in the minimal wings. The set we saw was a pleasing representation of the Prime Minister’s office, with a lovely drinks cupboard hidden behind a portrait of Gladstone, and the four separate doors demanded by the script, necessarily two at each end of the stage (not an ideal situation for a farce, but the cast dealt well with the distances involved, and the instantaneous exits and entrances through doors on the same side of the stage were well plotted and executed in true farce tradition). And further congratulations to the young and not so young ladies on their charmingly performed and often prolonged appearances virtually within touching distance of the audience in their underwear (or in one case in just some of it), as demanded by the script written nearly 40 years ago when most performances would have occurred at a safe distance behind a full proscenium arch and often an orchestra pit.
In the absence of any wardrobe credit, I assume cast members were responsible for their own clothes (full marks for the underwear), except for the red dress brilliantly devised to be worn at times by three of their number and looking good in different ways on each of them (well done Director and Producer?). I did feel that in the days before mobile phones (the exact date carefully not specified in the programme) Cabinet Ministers and the Prime Minister’s influential wife would have been a little more smart and stylish. Props by Mary Woolf and Helen Sherwood, including the mock Hansard volumes used briefly as a breastplate (and shortly swapped for the PM’s jacket with modesty preserved) worked well. The involvement of Lighting and Sound (Design Eddie Stephens, Operation Guy Taylor) was minimal, but the telephone ring was barely audible, when in a farce a loud ring designed to make both actors and audience jump and react is much more effective. SMs Bill Rebello and Lorna Alder managed the many entry cues well, with only one occasion when an actor was left pausing before the PM entered. Continuity regrettably found Dawn Harvey giving a considerable number of necessary prompts clearly, perhaps foretold by one rehearsal photo in Mike and Maggie Morrow’s informative programme (photos by Maggie and Britt Rees) showing a character still on script, and in addition we saw and heard not a few stumbles and pauses - for thought and not effect.
The nature of farces often means that the audience has to accept some strange situations as the basis for the comedy, and the position of a weak Prime Minister with a liking for cigarettes and whisky being forced by extremists in his own party into a policy designed to tax all enjoyable things to extinction that Graham Broderick as the PM had to get across to us well fits that bill. Playing the dialogue of the opening scene at lightning speed achieved that end and gave a snappy start, although I would have welcomed a little less speed later in his massive role, to give more time for reactions to farcical surprises (possibly also avoiding the odd fumble with words and the prompts). Essential to virtually every scene, constantly assailed by his Chancellor on one side and surprised and embarrassed by young ladies in their deshabille on the other, his role involved lots of physical activity, with him frequently seen on his knees begging one of the girls (for perfect farce reasons) to take off the red dress and innocently ripping another dress after a dash across stage which ended in a fall. What a performance! And eventually discovering he was not the father of Shirley Springer – what a (temporary) relief!
Bernard Vick as his Chancellor also had some fumbles on being caught out by swift responses until he managed to slow the pace, but got humour from his humourless Scottish insistence on implementing the penal taxation policy in full. Has anyone heard of a Chancellor similarly determined? Perhaps blood tests should be obligatory to deflect such people, and effect a complete change of character, as he displayed after he discovered that his blood group had shown he was an unmarried father.
As Sybil, the PM’s wife, Gillian Weinberg brought another-worldliness to proceedings as she deduced that the red dress in her husband’s hand was to be her birthday present, and that the scantily-clad young ladies were part of her blood donor charity. Her appearances in the red dress and later without it played completely straight were well-judged and hilarious, as were her blood group revelations.
As those young ladies, Tara Pathirana made a great character of Exotic Dancer Shirley Springer, mistaken for a high-class reporter and carrying off the impersonation with aplomb before revealing herself to be the PM’s daughter, not forgetting the stripping to add to the persuasion, while Mary-Anne Anaradoh as Jane Rotherbrook, the real reporter, showed just the right class in her character, only taking off her dress to have it mended (with the temporary repair involving a series of Bulldog clips increasing the fun). Lovely performances adding a great deal to the evening’s enjoyment.
James Byrne as Rodney Campbell, the PM’s Secretary, the other half of the slick opening scene dialogue, played his juvenile character straight, dealing clearly with all eventualities including the impressively smoking desk drawer and the initial mistake over the young ladies’ identities, as well as the arrangements for hiding them or dealing with their clothing. His frequent entry lines “Pardon Me, Prime Minister” were all well acted and expressed; the last (with David Moyes momentarily as a Private Investigator) providing the curtain denouement that PM was his father on his shout of “Daddy”.
Anchal Kausal’s role as bespectacled Miss Frobisher, the Chancellor’s secretary with a crush on Rodney is written to be played straight until she relinquishes her dress and her glasses (no silly schoolgirl hand up when addressing her boss, who wouldn’t have tolerated such a thing), which would have made her comedy scenes in her near blindness with Rodney and the Chancellor even more funny.
Bringing down the first Act curtain and dominating the second with wonderful attack (and recollection), Kim Wedler as Dora Springer, Shirley’s mother, confident from a strategically placed mole that the PM was Shirley’s father, brilliantly provided the backbone lacking in the PM and later, when it became clear that the Chancellor was the father, decided to take him and his socks in for renovation, though even she couldn’t make that seem quite credible!
My wife and I were quite surprised that a play from the 1970s lasted rather less than two hours and a quarter (including the interval) although I suppose there may have been some parts in a script of that age which had had to be excised. I have already indicated my concern that concentrating entirely on speed of dialogue may not give time for appropriate reactions on stage (or even in the audience), and in farce in particular where sudden surprise events or revelations bring one up short, an immediate verbal response with a line memorised from the script may well be less appropriate than a physical reaction (giving both the character and the audience the time to take it in) before delivery of the line. I fancy that Belmont, with considerable experience over the years including occasional farces, may disagree with my view and believe that speed should win – as evidenced by the break between the scenes in each Act, where in Act 1 the curtains had hardly touched before they were opened again, with the action continuing from where it had left off. If the authors had not intended that there should be a break, it could have been played straight through, although that would have lessened the effect of the well-written end of Scene 1. Their intention was surely to have enough of a break to allow the audience to breathe, laugh and relax, and possibly chat about the surprise to their neighbours for a minute or so before the performance resumed. A little background music (not perhaps of the nature of the Monty Python opening fanfare) to bridge the gap and fade when the curtains were about to open again might well be appropriate. Again in Act 2, although the break between scenes was a little longer with things on stage to be rearranged, the re-opening of the curtains appeared rushed and premature to me and I thought would have benefitted from similar treatment, as a welcome rest from the stage frenetics.
Despite those feelings, we spent a most enjoyable evening being entertained by a play we last saw in the week of the 1997 election (Ruislip Dramatic Society making an inspired guess on the date) and being introduced to your Society, obviously popular with an all-but full house giving a very warm reception on the Thursday night, and to your unusual but very comfortable venue. Our thanks to everyone mentioned above and to all those involved in the huge enterprise of the production.
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Follow us on Twitter @NODA_London