THE
Company of Ten is nothing if not versatile – last month
they were putting on the cerebral Sam Shepard play Sympatico and this week they
are performing an adaptation of P.G. Wodehouse.
mixed company
THE
Company of Ten is nothing if not versatile – last month
they were putting on the cerebral Sam Shepard play Sympatico and this week they
are performing an adaptation of P.G. Wodehouse.
The two could not be more unalike but they demonstrate the breadth of talent which the St Albans drama group has at its disposal.
The current play is Oh! Clarence which has been adapted by John Chapman from the Blandings Castle stories. Unsurprisingly, it has all the classic elements you would expect – plenty of humour, farce and more than a smidgeon of mistaken identity.
But it works well in the Abbey Theatre where the stage-management team have excelled themselves as always with a sumptuous Blandings Castle set.
And it proves beyond doubt that if the Company of Ten wants to guarantee full houses, this is the type of play to go for.
Directors Nick Strudwick and Philip Reardon have a good cast to work with, strong on timing and more than capable of milking every line for all it is worth.
Malcolm Rose is a suitably-eccentric Lord Emsworth and Margaret Metcalf gives a well-paced performance as his sister Lady Constance.
The part of Lord Emsworth's son Freddie could have been written for Will Franklin who is increasingly making such roles his own.
His relationship with the equine Jennifer Parsloe Parsloe, played energetically by Lisa Fitzgerald, is a hoot.
Most of the farce element is down to Jon Russell as the over-exuberant and clumsy Rupert Bingham who needs to persuade Lord Emsworth to give him a clerical living so he can marry Gertrude Wibberly, played by the glamorous Natasha White. In a similar vein is the role of dippy Dame Daphne Winkworth which finds Angela Stone in the type of part she shines in as she searches for a man to take her away from her working life as headmistress of a girls' school.
The sub-plot of the search for the valuable Scarab Beetle is safe in the hands of Mike Andrews as Sir Gregory Parsloe Parsloe and his "physician", Dr Simmons, played by Derek Coe.
Alan Herring as the butler Beach is always a pleasure to watch and David Stone is an exuberant Sir Eustace Chalfont.
There is nothing testing about Oh! Clarence. It is just the kind of good, old-fashioned entertainment at which the Company of Ten excels.
Oh! Clarence runs until Saturday 21 May at the Abbey Theatre in Westminster Lodge, St Albans. Tickets are available from the box office on 01727 857861.
MADELEINE BURTON
© Herts Advertiser, May 2005. Reproduced by permission