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Nobody's Perfect by Simon Williams
Cope Auditorium Loughborough, February 2008
Directed by Norman Hockley
Produced by Lawrence Holmes
In the live theatre, nothing is ever the same. Performances vary from night to night and so do the audiences. Actors talk backstage about the feel of an audience; a quiet one can inhibit a performance, a lively one can give it wings.
Normally we try to review a play early in the week at the beginning of its run. It means the review is in Thursday's Echo and hopefully what we write will encourage more people to see the show later in the week. With the romantic comedy by the Falcon Players at the Cope Auditorium, the first performance was last Wednesday night, too late for that week's paper, so your reviewer went to see the play at the weekend instead. Two things struck me, how different a week-end audience is from a first night audience. The theatre was full, the laughter came easily - you could sense the cast basking in the warmth. The second thing is how sorry I am that I can't get more people to see this first-rate comedy performed in such a slick and professional way by the Falcon Players. Nobody's Perfect depended for its success on four actors. This talented quartet had to hold the audience's attention for over two hours, no mean feat and a daunting prospect for those involved. The comedy took a good-natured look at a feminist publishing house. Love Is All Around was a more aggressive Mill and Boon, looking for new talent and its boss, Harriet Copeland, admirably played by Cathy Rackstraw, was also looking for a new direction to her life. Horror of horrors, a mouse of a man, Leonard Loftus (Norman Hockley) won the competition masquerading as a woman and of course much of the humour sprang from Len's attempts to deceive Harriet over the phone, and to indulge in a spot of lively cross dressing when Harriet visited him/her.
Norman Hockley also directed the play and quite honestly you couldn't find fault with either his acting ability or his directional skills as the pair's lives slowly but inevitably became entangled. Just to complicate things even further, Len had to cope with the well aimed jibes of his teenage daughter Dee-Dee (Rachel Fitzpatrick) and to control his wayward father Gus (Steve Shipton) who was everything he was not - extrovert, randy, an accomplished liar and wheeler-dealer. The interplay between these four, the pace of the comedy, the clever use of props, especially the phones, and the way they fed off each other, revelling in such a friendly audience was a pleasure to behold. Nobody's Perfect was a well-crafted well-directed comedy enjoyed by actors and audience alike. It was also well-served by an excellent set by Colin Dean which in no small way added to the fun. A thoroughly entertaining laughter-filled night out. Thank you, Falcon Players. (Review by Roy Jones) |