People's Theatre
18th - 22nd November
It has to be said that this week has been one of mixed fortunes. Lots of demands at work and home, added to that the worst weather in quite some time - meaning roads were blocked with slow moving traffic queues, or worse stationary traffic queues due to snow and ice, so late to work, then late home again ...and then my internet decided to play up, maybe that was the weather too? Who knows! But it has felt as if the gods and fate were against me which is how poor Philip Bin must have been feeling in the early years of his life ...as told by his older self, Sir Philip Bin, at The People's Theatre this week, and which I was meant to have reviewed before now but see the above for reasons to be so tardy.
Bleak Expectations is a Dickensian drama with a twist - it takes all the great ideas from Dicken's novels and blends them together into a hilarious parody. Known for dropping misfortune on his unsuspecting characters - from poor Oliver Twist, through Nicholas Nickelby to Philip Pirrip - Dickens tales are remorseless. In Bleak Expectations his characters and stories are mined and processed and reformed into an even more exaggerated but infinitely more amusing tale. Philip Bin is a boy whose happy life is turned upside down by the sudden - and somewhat suspicious - death of his father. Pip and his siblings are taken under the wing of his father's business partner, the odious and ironically named Gently Benevolent.
The play is filled with jokes, puns, double entendres and ridiculously named, outlandish characters. It is cleverly written, a tale of Victorian melodrama viewed through a 21srt century lens. Ridiculous and hilarious, it pokes fun at the Victorian double standards and dubious morals. Perfectly cast from Roger Liddle as the aging Sir Pilip Bin, and Thomas Kelly ( using his Sunday name) to Helen Parker as the joyfully mad Agnes Bin, it's impossible to single out any one performance. Everything on stage and off, cast, crew, props, sound and light, costumes, combine to create an almost perfect performance.
Even the audience contributed on the night I was there with a women somewhere in the auditorium laughing loudly at every innuendo with the best, most raucous laugh (I was beginning to think she was planted).
It has been a bright spot in my week - before the snow hit and life started looking bleak! If you've had a similar week to mine I'd urge you to make the effort to go see the final performance. If you're quick you might just make it for curtain up at 7.30pm.
Excellent preparation for the upcoming panto season! Harrumble for great theatre just around the corner!
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