Oh, and a little late, but here's another review of my play:

[angelophile]

Players delight in classic comedy

by George Willey

A black comedy written long before the term was coined, Arsenic and Old Lace broke new ground when it arrived in Britain from the US in the 1940s.

I saw it on its first tour and have never forgotten it. The film with Cary Grant was good but the play is better, though overlong. With a magnificent set - a rambling, New York turn-of-the-last-century house and some consummately good acting, the Purbeck Players gave us a memorable evening.



Peter Gutteridge and Matthew Noades designed and built the amazing set, the slightly sinister house where gentlemen lodgers mysteriously disappeared. Jean Rickard and Jacqui Chater beautifully played the guileless, endearing old ladies who helped those lonely lodgers to a better place by way of lethally charged elderberry wine.

Their serene way of life (and death) is interrupted by a visit from their nephew Mortimer (Tony Bailey), brilliant in a highly demanding role as the ghastly secrets of the house are revealed. His occupation as a drama critic led to many in-jokes in the witty script. Gail Green brought a refreshing note of sanity to the crazed household as his fiancée Elaine.

Nick Clarke was suitably horrific as the murderous nephew Jonathan, a Boris Karloff look-a-like; Frank Rickard was his sinister henchman, and the two made a hysterically flesh-creeping double act.

Matthew Noades contributed a side-splitting turn as the third brother, Teddy, a take-off of turn-of-the-last-century president Teddy Roosevelt; he made show-stopping entrances in various costumes, riotously roaring.

The long, involved farce was studded with gems of comic character studies, some of them police officers myopically unable to spot the mayhem going on in the Brewster household: Tom Holmes, John Murphy, Bob Fellows, Chris Gutteridge and Phil Frost played these roles with gusto. Only slight pauses for prompts in the second act slightly hindered a truly amazing production.

Comments

review

[happy-hacker.livejournal.com]

Now *that* is a solid review. Congrats. :)

Also, happy new year!

-Jim

[entershan.livejournal.com]

Great review and congratulations on the performance.

By the way, out of curiosity, how is your last name pronounced? Does it sound like "nodes"?

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

Yep, pronounced nodes. It's a pretty unusual one and there are various spellings including Nodes, Knoades, Knodes and Noades. There's not many of us about, even with all the different spelling variations.

[entershan.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see, cool.