STEPPING OUT: Harris, Derby Playhouse till 17 November
Derby.
STEPPING OUT
by Richard Harris.
Derby Playhouse Tol 17 November 2007.
Mon-Sat7.30pm Mat Weds and Sats (except 14, 17 Nov) 2.30pm
Audio-described 10 Nov 2.30pm, 14 Nov.
BSL Signed 10 Nov 2.30pm, 15 Nov.
Education Day 10am 14 Nov.
Post-show discussion 15 Nov.
Runs 2hr 20min One interval.
TICKETS: 01332 363275
www.derbyplayhouse.co.uk.
Review: Alan Geary 18 Oct 2007
Inconsequential and often over-acted, it’s nevertheless worth stepping out for.
The press night audience fell about in this production but there are a number of problems. The main one is that Stepping Out is inconsequential. It’s reasonably amusing in places but most of the best comedies, besides being funny, say something important. This one appears to say very little of significance, and, assuming we’ve been paying attention to our own lives and the lives of people around us, almost nothing that we don’t already know.
The plot - what little there is - concerns a motley bunch meeting for a down-market tap class in a seedy North London church hall, and doesn’t come properly alive until after the interval, when skeletons tumble out of cupboards. It’s mainly the fault of playwright, Richard Harris, but partly down to the actors and/or director that the first half lacks pace and development.
The other problem is that (this is a conservative estimate) at least two of the parts are absurdly over-acted. Even allowing for the sitcom-like qualities of the play - it’s very like Dad’s Army - and the likelihood that characters are intended to represent a range of stereotypical caricatures, Joanne Redmond’s rabbity Dorothy and Sophie-Louise Dann’s pretentious and bogus-posh Vera are hopelessly over the top.
The revolving cut-away set is also pretentious and somehow out of kilter with the intended spirit of the play. We need the church hall, of course, but the changing room and church exterior are bolt-on gimmicks.
On the positive side, there’s an outbreak of decent, even moving, acting in the letting-it-all-hang-out scene just before the end. And after that we get some splendid hoofing, particularly from Anita Louise Combe, as Mavis, who all along has been far too slick and tasty to be running a no-hope dance class.
There are some good proletarian wisecracks. Fat Slag look-alike Sylvia (nicely done by Suzie Chard) has a husband who’s a scaffolder - “He’d have to be to get up this lot!” says she. And the eighties period is well-observed: leg-warmers, Mavis’s ghetto blaster, and so on. It’s interesting how Sylvia’s hubby fiddling the Social Security, in a way intended, in the Thatcher era, to evoke sympathy, resonates differently today.
Mrs Fraser: Rosemary Ashe.
Lynne: Jenna Boyd.
Geoffrey: Michael Cahill.
Sylvia: Susie Chard.
Mavis: Anita Louise Combe.
Vera: Sophie-Louise Dann.
Maxine: Kim Ismay.
Rose: Yvonne Newman.
Dorothy: Joanne Redman.
Andy: Flik Swann.
Blue Team: Jess Burman, Evie-Mae McFarlane, Jessica North, Ellie Slack, Barnaby Johnson.
Red Team: Aimee Reeves, Harriet Guard, Isobel Newbury, Fay Miles, Joe Lavender.
Director: Steven Dexter.
Designer: Francis O’Connor.
Lighting: Dirk Sarach-Craig.
Sound: Adam McCready.
Composer/Musical Arranger: Elliot Davis.
Choreographer: Nick Winston.
2007-10-20 00:56:05