The Tart and the Vicar’s Wife

The Tyne Theatre & Opera House, Newcastle

Although the title may conjure up images of a traditional farce, ‘The Tart and The Vicar’s Wife’ is much more than just that. It is also an often harrowing and heart-rending drama.

Glenda and Robert Parry were the typical successful couple – him an affluent executive, her the glamorous ‘trophy wife’ – until Robert emerges unhurt from a potentially fatal car crash and decides to devote his life to God and become a vicar.

Glenda consequently finds herself thrust into a complete role transformation from wealthy executive’s wife to impoverished vicar’s wife, struggling to make ends meet and solving the problems of all who arrive on her doorstep.

When Robert leaves for a four-week course and a millionaire lottery winner turns up in the village to ask for the Reverends help in exorcising his haunted manor, the laughs really come thick and fast.

Linda Armstrong, better known to many as Sister Brigid in the ITV1 drama The Royal, gives an outstanding performance as Glenda. She is well supported by a host of familiar faces including Brookside’s Marcus Hutton, Emmerdale’s Matt Healy and Sarah Jane Buckley from Hollyoaks.

The comic capers increase when Glenda and three of her friends are offered an unorthodox way of solving their financial difficulties – temporarily become high class escorts!

This is the first time that ‘The Tart and the Vicar’s Wife’ has been on tour in almost thirty years, yet its topical ‘credit-crunch’ theme ensures it is not dated at all. Director Ian Dickens has cleverly made a few minor adjustments to the script to make it suitable for a twenty-first century audience, and the result is an hilarious evening’s entertainment.

Steve Burbridge.

Tour Dates

Wolverhampton Grand                       Tues 14^th – Sat 18th July

Blackpool Grand                                 Mon 27^th - Wed 29th July

Swansea Grand                                   Tues 4^th - Sat 8th August

Grand Opera House Buxton               Wed 2nd - Sat 5th Sept

White Rock Theatre Hastings             Tues 8^th - Sat 12th Sept

Lyceum Theatre Crewe                       Mon 21^st - Sat 26th Sept

Gordon Craig Theatre Stevenage       Tues 29th Sept - Sat 3rd Oct

Garrick Theatre, Lichfield                  Tues 6^th - Sat 10th Oct

Theatre Royal Lincoln                        Mon 19^th - Sat 24th Oct

Civic Theatre Darlington                    Tues 17^th - Sat 21st Nov

Pools Paradise

Reviewed at Darlington Civic Theatre

Ian Dickens Productions’ tenth summer repertory season is being brought to a close with Philip King’s farce, ‘Pools Paradise.’

Set in the sleepy village of Merton-cum-Middlewick, it seems that the vicar’s wife has come up trumps on the football pools with a sizeable win. The only trouble is her pious husband doesn’t know she’s been having a weekly flutter and staunchly disapproves of gambling. Already frowned upon by some of the more sanctimonious parishioners, particularly Miss Skillon, because of her background as an actress, poor Penelope Toop finds herself in a bit of a quandary.

While she waits for the results to be officially confirmed via her simple-minded maid Ida and her doltish boyfriend Willie Briggs, Penelope tries to come up with a way of breaking the news to her husband.

In true farce tradition, nothing goes according to plan. The vicarage quickly becomes a scene of complete chaos as coupons are mistakenly switched and switched again, trousers are lost, and lots of madcap chases ensue.

David Callister gives a decent performance as the Reverend Lionel Toop, whilst Kathryn Dimery is a delight as the frazzled Penelope. Julia Main’s performance as Ida is anything but subtle and Helen Jeckells, as Miss Skillon, could never be accused of underacting. David Janson makes the most of the slightly thankless part of Reverend Humphrey, whilst Ben Roberts and Frankie Fitzgerald, as the Bishop of Lax and Willie Briggs respectively, do little to earn top billing in roles that are undemanding to say the least.

The play was written almost fifty years ago and, these days, has something of a sentimental nostalgia about it. When first performed, I suppose it would have been considered far more risqué. By today’s standards, the jokes and gags are tired and unfunny and the piece doesn’t really stand the test of time.

That said, the vast majority of the audience (who were senior citizens) seemed to be having a ball.

Steve Burbridge.

‘Pools Paradise’ runs at Darlington Civic Theatre until Saturday 4^th July 2009.

Hit West End comedy lands in Glasgow for a flying visit as part of it’s UK Tour.

When flight changes on a visit to London meant that I missed this play on it’s West End run (little realising the irony), I was more than delighted to see it touring to Glasgow this year, and went along with high expectations. These expectations were dampened slightly by the rather bare and dirty front cloth, which had me hoping that more care had been taken with rest of the production out on tour. However, once the curtain went up and the performance began, we saw we were in for a treat.

Martin Marquez, as Bernard gave a very enigmatic and charming performance, and looked far more handsome than his “sleazy barman” image from Hotel Babylon. His brother John (here playing his cousin!) however stole the show. His slow progression from the stuttering provincial cousin, to unintentional ladies man was a delight to watch. The naturalness of his nervous tics were in stark contrast to the physical humour played out during the second act of this farce, and as with all comedy, playing it for real makes it seem all the funnier.

Onto the ladies, and the three mistresses gave great performances too. Not only do these three ladies look stunning, but they have the intelligence to handle good comic timing, most notably in the rather wordier first act. Sarah Jayne Dunn made the transfer from Hollyoaks to Hollywood, as the glamorous and fiesty American Gloria. Thaila Zucchi, of TV’s Balls Of Steel, showed exactly that as the forthright Italian Gabriella. The gutsy German, Gretchen, was excellently characterised by Jospehine Butler, and although neither of the european accents were entirely convincing, the performances definitely were. However, top of the tree for performance was Susie Blake. Her deadpan delivery as downtrodden domestic servant Bertha was poetry in motion. The timing of movement and putdowns showed another layer to this versatile actress.

The set design was simple and clean, which is ideal for a door slamming farce such as this, with the odd splash of colour to break up the white, and help focus the action. The randomness of the Curtain Call Choreography was entertaining and intriguing and for some strange reason, fitted into the whole evening of enjoyable theatre that was Boeing Boeing.

Alan Ayckbourn’s adaptation of the 1920’s Aldwych Farce by Evans and Valentine made an unusual departure, yet a very funny one, from some of the other theatre in Edinburgh at the moment.

The play concerns the trials of Aubrey Allington and his wife Louise. Aubrey, a penniless inventor, is left a fortune by his deceased brother which, on Aubrey’s death, will revert to his (thought to be dead) cousin George Maitland. Aubrey plans to stage his own death and disguise himself as Maitland, in order to avoid his creditors. Unfortunately things don’t run so smoothly.

It’s obvious from the onset of the play that it is of a certain period in time. It is difficult for farce to seem anything but antiquated compared to the style of today’s plays. This isn’t helped by Ayckbourn’s ‘adaptation’, for as he admits in the programme he did little in adapting the writing and only updated or omitted anything a more modern audience would no longer find funny or understand. As a result whilst some sections of the play are incredibly funny, others are less so and tend to use techniques such as the mimicking of other characters or pronouncing words in an unusual way, which becomes tiresome after a while.

It isn’t aided by Joe Harmston’s direction. This at times makes the play feel stilted and makes no imaginative use of the actors, the set or the script.

Despite all this the actors themselves put in a sterling job. In particular Mark Curry as Aubrey Allington, whose ability to play such a range of characters is very impressive. Also Caroline Langrishe as his wife, who puts in a very powerful performance as the woman who instigates most of the goings on throughout the play. Christopher Timothy also puts in a superb performance as the scheming butler, Sprules.

Don’t expect any high drama from this show. Just a good laugh!

Listings:

The Kings Theatre, Edinburgh

2 to 7 Nov

Tues – Sat eves 7:30pm

Wed & Sat mats 2:30pm

Tickets: £12.50 - £25

Box Office: 0131 529 6000

www.eft.co.uk

Then touring until 14 Feb