Stepping Out

Stanford Hall Theatre - Wednesday 19th to Saturday 22nd June 2002

A Comedy Written By Richard Harris

Directed By Lawrence Holmes, Choreography By Kathy Phillips

Out of chaos, comedy comes

Poor Mavis! 

She had no chance training a group of middle aged women (and one man) in her dance class to perform at a charity concert. There really is no hope for this lot especially with someone like Sylvia who can't tell her left foot from her right and uses 'whatever foot comes to hand'.

How these no-hopers rehearse and manage to come up with a brilliant stage performance is what 'Stepping Out' is all about. The light hearted comedy by the Falcon Players, set 'in a village hall somewhere in England' was on at Stanford Hall Theatre last week and it was a treat. It was appealing because the line dance classes unified a group of very different people for one purpose.

The regular meetings shed light on the lives of all the characters. Maxine (Liz Cox) is trying to cope with her stepson, posh Vera (Sylvia Fall) would never buy second hand clothes and Geoffrey (Michael Seed), the only male, always takes a ribbing from the women.

One of the funniest scenes showed them having to rehearse in the most ridiculous hats after they were delivered the wrong ones. Vera had to make do with Mickey Mouse ears. How they managed to dance with a straight face, I'll never know. Everyone had an equally important part to play in the show and the humour came from the situations thrown up by the coming together of these very odd characters. In one sequence, tall Geoffrey was almost having to kneel to dance with little Dorothy (Patricia Quilter).

The acting was very simple and mirrored everyday life. You could bump into this bunch of people if you walked into any village hall. By the end of the play, judging by the fact that nearly everything went wrong for them, I had my doubts as to whether the group would actually be able to pull off the concert performance. But no ! Mavis did a good job and the finale treated the audience to some excellent dances.

Full marks to Kathy Phillips who played Mavis and also to the choreography, director Lawrence Holmes and the entire cast.

Sonia Sharma - Loughborough Echo, 28/6/02