By Lewis Maclean.
The Drama flew thick and fast on Saturday night in Shirley. The location; the Maskers Theatre.
The “Amateur company with professional standards” is being politely modest, as their latest show proved. Even the mere feat of walking onto the stage impressed. The stage design was quite a sight to behold, with an intricate and detailed rendering of a shared household, more than adequately serving its humble purpose of setting the scene. I noticed later on, that when the front door was opened (facing up stage), there was even a little green hedge barely visible behind the door. I marvelled at such detail and I should have seen it as a clue to how deeply layered the following play would be.
A trip to the Maskers theatre is an intimate, almost exclusive affair. The presence of the audience almost overlaps into the front room carpet of the set. This must have inevitably made everyone feel at home. The chairs came up so close to the stage that I was concerned about sticking my feet out. I thought twice about leaving my drink on the floor but again, the actors were professional enough to know their marks.
The plot of the play itself initially seemed a simple concept at and I briefly thought this might be a slow evening. But as the story escalates, the pace accelerates and whilst I consider myself no slouch to comedy, I constantly found myself a beat behind the laughs, which were coming thick and fast, alongside the drama.
Acting wise, nobody was lapsing in their roles and there were certainly no prima donnas attempting to hog the limelight. I really enjoyed seeing bright and realistic satire on display, with a subtle deconstruction of almost every British stereotype from dodgy wheeler-dealer cheeky cockneys, to over-zealous bleeding heart civil servants to draconian job centre staff. By the second act, it had all gone so crazy that the arrival of the stern funeral director and the intimidating matron-esque senior inspector merely paved the way for the explosive robotic washing machine.
Having worked for HMRC for best part of a decade, I am pretty sure I knew some of the characters from tonight in person. 10/10 to the actors playing tax inspectors for method acting. 11/10 for the washing machine.
(In fact, the only time I lost any suspension of disbelief was the suggestion that someone from the Department of Social security knew how to fix a washing machine but this was remedied.)
The actor playing protagonist Mr Swann reminded me Jacko from BBC TV comedy Brush Strokes. The cast were a very cooperative effort and you certainly get that vibe from the Maskers Theatre anyway. The overall feel of the place is very much a ‘for the people, by the people’ ideology. This is likely a necessity in delivering successful theatre to small, local crowds but the proof must be in the pudding because many Maskers productions famously sell out quicky.
If Maskers is to be a victim to its own intimacy, at least the shows always goes on. As it must and as it has since 1968.
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