WHISKY GALORE! THE MAKING OF A FILLUM till 17 Feb

Nottingham

WHISKY GALORE! THE MAKING OF A FILLUM:
adapted by Giles Croft

Nottingham Playhouse: To 17 February 2007
Runs: 1hr 45min One interval
Performance times 7.45pm

TICKETS: 0115 949 4949
www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk
Review: Alan Geary: 15 February 2007

A waste of time.
People going to this because they’re interested in the novel and film will come away with very little except what amounts to a glorified play-reading of the original. If you go expecting to be engaged by a play about the people who made the film you’ll feel even more short-changed.

The original story was perfect material for a classic Ealing comedy. In those drab post-war years of red tape and rationing people enjoyed a romp where a small, tightly-knit community runs rings round the bureaucratic little Hitlers - that was the stuff of Ealing. But the story no longer serves any obvious purpose.

Even so, adaptor Giles Croft might have made a worthwhile yarn out of the people, a pretty interesting bunch as it happens, who went to Barra to make the fillum. He introduces them, and Compton Mackenzie, and then … that’s yer lot. All they do is improvise some of the highlights from the central story. There’s no plot development of any sort.

Some of the actors turn in respectable performances. Robert Shelton, a versatile performer - he was last at the Playhouse as Frank Sinatra - is good, not only as director Sandy, but improvising as the dour Macroon and as Captain Lindsay-Wolsey. So is Karen Drury; she’s a bit matronly for Joan Greenwood but she does well as telephone operator Peggy Macroon. As Mrs Campbell her accent wanders about somewhat.

Matthew Cullum and Sally Armstrong are effective as Farquharson, the excise man, and Dolly Waggett respectively.

Robert Austin disappoints. His Compton Mackenzie is a tweedy caricature and his Captain Waggett is hardly any different. Particularly at the start, he fails to project sufficiently.

It’s hard to fathom why this play was written or what its point is supposed to be. Given that one of its main characters, Mackenzie, was apparently used as the starting point for D H Lawrence’s The Man Who Loved Islands, and another, Joan Greenwood, was once ranked 63rd in a list of the sexiest stars in film history, you’d have expected more.

Actually, the best thing about the evening was the programme, which makes fascinating reading.

Cast
Christine/Catriona Macroon/Dolly Waggett: Sally Armstrong
Monty/Captain Waggett/The Biffer/Captain Buncher: Robert Austin
Danny/Roderick MacRurie/Old Hector/Captain McKecknie/Farquharson: Matthew Cullum
Joan/Peggy Macroon/Mrs Campbell: Karen Drury
Sandy/Joseph Macroon/Captain Lindsay-Wolsey/Dr MacLaren/Munroe: Richard Shelton
Alan/Sergeant Odd/George Campbell/Sandy MacCodran: Tim Smith

Director: Giles Croft
Designer: Helen Fownes-Davies
Lighting Designer: Richard G Jones
Sound Designer: Adam McCready
Dialect Coach: Carol Ann Crawford

2007-02-16 20:30:18