First Night Flutter for Liver Birds
by Sarah Shepheard

THE FALCON PLAYERS brought nostalgia to Stanford Hall Theatre last week with their production of the Liver Birds.

It was an ambitious choice of play for the group who set themselves the difficult challenge of having to recapture something of the original show.

Sue Vickers played the part of prim Sandra who desperatly tries to reform her sloppy, uncultured flatmate Beryl, comically portrayed by Rebecca Bridges.

Their characters were reminiscent of the original TV series flatmates played by Polly James and Nerys Hughes - but they did not get the laughs they deserved.

The performance I saw on Wednesday last week lacked pace in the first half and was not helped by Sue Vickers forgetting some of her lines. But it picked up in the second half as the sequence of misunderstandings and disasters heaps higher and higher.

Trouble starts in the play when Beryl's new boyfriend Robert - "one of your posh lot" as she puts it to Sandra - invites her to have breakfast with him.

Beryl panics and decides she needs a new image. She enlists the help of her flatmate and gets a crash course in deportment and elocution from Sandra's mother, Mrs. Hutchinson.

Playing the part of Robert was Mark Hill who spends most of the time hidden in a cupboard while Beryl looks for his trousers.

Mrs. Hutchinson was portrayed well by Jill Pritchard, although I felt she could have afforded to send up her part more and make her even 'posher'

The star of the show for me was Mrs. Hennessey, brilliantly played by Patricia Kirton. She was comic to the core.

And there was the funny, camp Desmond Duval played by Roy Emmett. Desmond specialises in making fairy cakes and is always popping in to see the girls to borrow more cooking ingredients.

Credit must also go to Stuart Bailey, the Vicar, liked by Sandra and Sandra's boyfriend Paul, played by Rik Housden.

Chris Marlow played the serious Mr. Hutchinson in the comedy and also produced the show.