Laying The Ghost
Stanford Hall Theatre - Wednesday 5th to Saturday 8th February 2003
A Comedy Written By Simon Williams
Directed By Frank & Sue Webster
Spirited show of the obvious
Maybe it was the week I'd had leading up to my evening at Stanford Hall Theatre last Thursday to see the Falcon Players' production of 'Laying The Ghost'. Perhaps it was just a case of tiredness and not feeling exactly 100 per cent. Whatever the reason, the play didn't lodge itself in my memory as I thought it might do, although if you asked me why, I probably couldn't tell you.
The production was the Falcon's 125th show, quite a notable achievement and it was a nice touch as well that the cast featured Janet Holmes and Bill Pritchard who starred in the groups 25th production 34 years ago and are still going strong today.
In a nutshell the play centres around former actress Margo Buchahan (Yvonne Marshall) who finds her 70th birthday turning into a nightmare as her womanising ex-husband Sir Leo (Stuart Bailey), his current wife Judy (Liz Cox) and his current affair Sadie Croft (Sylvia Fall) all pay a visit. Things get even more tangled when Sir Leo, who is being pursued by an intrepid tabloid journalist about his lively love life life dies suddenly leaving the women to sort out their differences through sympathy.
Only Leo's ghost wants to put right his wrongs but he is only visible to Freda (Holmes) who is Margot's friend and barking mad. This alone should have provided plenty of laughs but while there were some amusing moments (mainly provided by Freda's nuttiness) some of it was, well a little obvious. The immediate prominence of 'Margot's swear box' told you where a large chunk of humour would be centred.
The Falcon's cast tried their best, and Holmes was a gem, but the play just didn't engage me and have me spoilt for choice for amusing highlights as other productions (such as their previous show 'Holiday Snap') have done in the past. Perhaps you just can't make them all laugh, all of the time.
John Smith - Loughborough Echo 14/02/03