Dry Rot

Sitting in the semi dark of the beautiful Theatre Royal Brighton with my ears tortured by the wailing clarinet of a trad jazz soundtrack did not bode well. I so wanted to have a fun evening, I wanted to be reminded how good farce can be, how the humour of a more innocent time could triumph over the coarse wit of today.

It was not to be. John Chapman’s Dry Rot was exactly that, dry and rotten. Written for Brian Rix in 1954 maybe there was a chance here to capture the mood of the era with a production steeped in period charm and nostalgia. But it was not, in fact, so poor were the costumes and the set that it could have been set any time between 1930 and now.

All this apart the cast did a pretty sterling job of making up for these inadequacies. Liza Goddard, as the dippy ex-colonial wife, delivered her part with dexterity, even managing to cope with the lack of laughter from the audience. Neil Stacy, a consumate professional, played the husband with great comic reserve worthy of a true farce and the rest of the cast went along with them. Steven Blakely certainly has the look and comic timing of a great fall guy and was perhaps the best fun of the evening, and Andrew Paul was excellent as the bungling crook with ideas above his station. Gemma Bissix was seriously mis-cast as the housekeeper, way too young and attractive, despite her ‘Mrs Overall’ posturing. Gareth Hale did not have anything to work with in his part of the script and as such fell somewhat flat. Mark Martin was better served and seemed to have embraced the innocence of the age in his performance.

How much better it could have been with a decent set, good costumes and a sense of the mannered delivery of the period. But how obvious this makes the soon to be seen advent of the Joe Orton’s and John Osborne’s, who back then were simply waiting in the wings.

Theatre Royal Brighton, 26 September 2012

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