BIG BAD MOUSE. To 2 August.

Tour.

BIG BAD MOUSE
by Philip King and Falkland L Cary.

Tour to 2 August 2008.
Runs 1hr 50min (approx).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 June at Theatre Royal Nottingham.

Cannon fodder on the Ball.
You have to look very carefully to find a reference to authors Philip King and Falkland L Cary in this production’s programme. There again, you have to be fairly alert to catch any evidence of their script in this production. A helpful Tommy Cannon points out a line or two before ripping off into more cascades of added business.

And that’s before accomplice Bobby Ball appears (to a silence ordered by Cannon) and sets off his own routines. This 1966 comedy originally had Eric Sykes and the late Jimmy Edwards demolish the script about a submissive food company executive who acquires a new popularity when it’s believed he assaulted a woman on Manchester Common.

Females here are a job-lot from the Benny Hill school of characterisation, lusciously lusty or frigid on the exterior with desire lurking beneath severe specs. Then there’s company boss, Lady Chesapeake, the formidable Sue Hodge, only performer allowed any freedom alongside C & B.

Unlike the explosive Edwards and meek-mannered Sykes, these two comedians are a regular team, knowing just how much space to give each other. Tommy Cannon’s verbal ripostes tend to one-liners rather than fantastic flights, while Bobby Ball’s physical comedy sits nearer clowning traditions, with its comical props and miming.

A simple trombone-playing mime is magnified by repetition at moments which seem inexplicably right. Audience members are fixed upon, though never made uncomfortable. There’s delight in defying the suspended disbelief of staging, as Ball speaks unheard outside an apparently-closed office window then walks through the empty space it supposedly occupied.

Much of this will be familiar to anyone used to physical theatre and comedy. But this duo has a wider audience Not so wide on this night. Despite a programme article detailing their record-breaking appearances, C & B fans in Nottingham don’t seem to flock to the theatre on a warm Tuesday evening in late June.

Yet the pair worked the sprinkling among the empty rows with determination and won people over by a practised skill that brought them, rather than the dated proceedings around them, an enthusiastic response at the final curtain.

Fiona Jones: Emily Trebicki.
Harold Hopkins: Chris Leach.
Miss Spencer: Anne Smith.
Mr Price-Hargreaves: Tommy Cannon.
Mr Bloome: Bobby Ball.
Lady Chesapeake: Sue Hodge.
Doris Povey: Evelyn O’Malley.

Referee: Paul Elliott.
Designer: Alan Miller Bunford.
Lighting: Chris Olney.

2008-06-29 11:19:08