Ray Cooney, now in his 80s, is an English playwright and actor, his biggest success was ‘Run for Your Wife’ which ran for nine years in London’s West End, becoming London’s longest-running comedy. This was presented by Wanneroo’s Limelight Theatre in August this year.

The Rockingham Theatre Company at ‘The Castle’, Rockingham Theatre, 8 Attwood Way in Rockingham, is presenting this wild two-hour madcap comedy (rather than a farce) on Friday and Saturday evenings at 8.00 pm. The season runs until 3^rd December at 8.00 pm. there is also one matinée on Sunday 27^th November at 2.00 pm

The scene is the sitting room cum dining area in the Harper’s home in Woking. This is a very well designed (David Heckingbottom) and constructed set (male cast with Rob Walker, Danny Joyce), complete with three doors, a window, staircase, TV and ‘working’ gas fire. The furnishings are excellent (Lorraine Howes) and the room really appears lived in – very well done. As the script reminds us, there are ‘nice curtains and rugs’. The wild costumes are by Kerry Tarbuck.

Jackie Hiscox’s lighting was carefully planned and the soundscape well recorded and operated on cue.

        Linda Harper (Kirstie Francis) who has always been easy-going and enjoying the good life, now confides to her neighbour and best friend, Betty (Larraine Heckingbottom) that she has only three years before she will be 40! Already she is feeling that the better side of life is passing her by. Her son Leonard (Callon Leam) is a typical teenager, enjoying life, doing as little as possible and not even noticing she is in the house. Then there is Linda’s loving father in law, Bernard (Ron Gent), senile and still living out his war service in the Air Force.

      Linda’s husband, George (David Heckingbottom) has been a good father to her son, a great family breadwinner, but he is boring with a capital ‘B’. They have been married 17 years and their love life is now down to birthdays and Christmas, if she is lucky.

      At one in the morning, Linda and George stagger home from a business, fancy dress party at the Town Hall. They are closely followed by Betty’s husband, Roger (Peter Scarrott), who is hoping to scrounge a few more free drinks before going home. When Linda goes up to bed, Roger reveals to George that he has had a vasectomy, and that his sex drive has since increased beyond his wildest dreams. Roger confides he now has extracurricular interests on a Monday and Wednesday night. Roger thoroughly recommends that George gets a ‘snip’ too – it will make a new man of him.

       Will George take Roger’s advice, or does Linda have ideas of her own?

This play was written in about 30 years ago, and is now showing a little bit of age. Cooney’s sole efforts were his better scripts, but this comedy has a great plot and plenty of laughs. David Heckingbottom and Kirstie Francis had tremendous chemistry, with Kirstie playing the randy but ignored wife, and David as the boring, and at times ‘disabled’ husband. Both actors not only had perfect comedic, verbal timing, but their hilarious body language doubled the humour.

After years of acting and presenting farces, director Sue Walker ably assisted by Larraine Heckingbottom, have milked every ounce of comedy from the show. All of the actors have literally thrown themselves boldly – and daringly – into the wild and ridiculous situations. Good supporting cast.

Young Callon Leam has come on leaps and bounds since his first show. He has certainly grasped the skills of comedy delivery. A few more years and a new generation of younger comic actors will be required, and he is in line.

At the ‘Castle’, you can always be sure of a warm welcome and a professional show.

This two-hour romance romp that goes awry, explodes at 8.00 pm every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night until 7^th May at the Rockingham Castle Theatre, 8 Attwood Way, Rockingham, where you can always be assured of a warm welcome and a smile from Sam Taylor’s team.

The scene is about the year 2000 in an upmarket flat in Brighton, on the south coast of England. The bedroom is on the left of the stage – the wall is cutaway, with the bedroom door leading into the sitting room. At the rear is a passage, leading to the front door and spare bedroom.

As always with ‘The Castle’ sets, the quality is outstanding. The contemporary sunflower and white walls gave an immediate visual lift. The bedroom furniture, the comfortable settee and wooden floor shouted luxury. (Constructed by David Heckingbottom, Peter Scarrott, Terry Winter, Danny Joyce and Callon Leam). Slick stage management by Sue Lawson and Stephanie Bell. The lighting and sound were smoothly handled by Callon Leam.

      It is morning and Gordon (Peter Scarrott) is getting dressed. He has just had his once a week ‘treat away from home’, a night with glamourous, divorcée Harriet (Larraine Heckingbottom). Harriett just purrs sex in order to conquer her financial problems. What poultry dealer, Gordon doesn’t know, is that Harriett is ‘working double shifts’ and on another day of the week, is entertaining another wealthy businessman, trawler owner Alec (Danny Joyce) and presenting him with the same bills as Gordon already pays.

      One day, an old friend of Harriet arrives. She is smart and bright Anne (Helen Brown), who is married to an alcoholic Kiwi vet, Richard (Rob Walker). Deciding that her marriage is floundering, she arrives to stay. Until now, ‘sweet and innocent’ Harriett has kept her two lovers apart, whilst her husband in Peru.

      Veterinary surgeon, inebriated Richard snuggles up on the settee with a fur stole that in his stupor, he hopes to cure. However, by now, the lovers’ wives naïve Magda (Jacki Gahan) and straight-laced Mildred (Lorraine Howes) are starting to suspect something is going on, and are closing in on Harriett’s little game.

A good farce has a selection of ‘revolving’ doors – this show has 5, and they are fully employed with split-second timing.

This is a genre that can collapse in the wrong hands. My expectations at the ‘Castle’ are always high, but I have never been let down.

This is a thoroughly brilliant romp, perfectly handled by director David Heckingbottom. In the second Act it gives us a cast faced with a complex, intricate script and yet the physical disasters were perfectly and accurately carried out. Not a beat was missed as the finely observed characters bungled through each fast moving scene.

Leading lady, Larraine, was magnificent and was well supported by her crippled lovers, Peter and Danny. Her sexy friend Helen, with her beautifully underplayed drunk husband, Rob made the show a great laugh. The cheated-on wives Jacki and Lorraine, were delightful.

How often do you see the actors line up for the final bow, and then bend in an uncoordinated wave? This director had a fun twist to this show, with a final fight for Harriett’s hand.

Tickets are now on sale for the August spectacular. Be quick, these shows are almost always sold out.

This hilarious show is a combination of three TV episodes, ‘The Arrival’, ‘Love and Marriage’ and ‘The Easter Bunny’. In its 13 years on TV, it won multiple British Academy Television Awards.

Two snippets: Emma Chambers, who played Alice, won comedy actress of the year. Trevor Peacock, the mad Jim Trott, penned Herman’s Hermits big 1960’s hit ‘Mrs Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter’, along with many other songs for Joe Brown, Adam Faith and Billy Fury – no, no, no, no, yes he did!

This Rockingham Theatre Company’s production can be seen at the theatre of comedy, The Castle Theatre, 8 Attwood Way, Rockingham, with weekend shows at 8.00 pm; it runs until 29^th August.

The scene is Dibley, a small village in Oxfordshire. The stage was divided in two (set design Larraine Craig, David Heckingbottom), with one-half ‘the vicarage’ and the other was ‘the village hall’ for council meetings. The sets, as always, were top quality built by the cast, Peter Scarrott and Nancy Soroka. Simple props represented the church and Leticia’s bedroom, but with good, well-planned lighting and sound (Jackie Hiscox, Beth Haigh), the minor venues became realistic and convincing.

     The curtains open to show the church congregation being led by the Rev Pottle (Steve Hall) who collapses. His incompetent verger, Alice (Natasha Birch) checks his pulse, but the poor man has died.

     A couple of weeks later, the Chairman of the Parish Council, David Horton (Danny Joyce) has his welcoming committee gathered in his sitting room, awaiting the arrival of the replacement vicar. The doorbell rings, David’s wimpy son Hugo (Callon Leam) answers the door, and to his father’s horror, a female vicar enters. She is the attractive Rev. Geraldine Granger (Larraine Craig).

     The senile and confused, Jim Trott (Rob Walker) welcomes the vicar with his own inimitable style. Church organist, Letitia Cropley (Helen Clark) rushes forward with a plate of her unique sandwiches, but is pushed aside by farmer Owen (Ian Spencer) who wants to check Geraldine’s udders. The longwinded, pedantic, council secretary, Frank (Terry Winter) starts his garrulous welcoming speech.

      Later Geraldine finds that not all of the Hortons are the same, in fact cousin Simon (David Heckingbottom) is ‘quite dishy’. The vicar then has a major upset at one of her first services, with the angry shouting of a strange woman (Lorraine Howes).

When an audience goes to see a play based on a well-known TV series, the expectation of seeing the ‘real’ characters is often unfair, but I know that this show satisfied even the hardest theatregoer. Three of the characters, the vicar, old Jim Trott and Frank Pickle were truly magnificent clones of the original. The rest of the cast must also have put in hours of rehearsal, talking to themselves in front of a mirror, as their mannerisms and facial expressions were superb. The actors’ perfect accents and diction ranged from Alice’s nasal lugubrious delivery, to Owen’s monotonous drawl.

A TV production has the luxury of editing, cutting rapidly from one venue to the next. On stage, this can often mean a set or costume change, and even though this stage crew (Samuel Taylor aided by Tegan Joyce, Jayden Fern, Lorraine Howes) were splendid in both speed and silence, the flow staggered a little. Rather than have a simple blackout, the village yokel changed a sign on an easel, informing us of the next location; in his own quirky way, this helped keep the audience ‘warmed up’ instead of a crippling, simple blackout.

The costumes were many and varied, from the dignified ministerial garb, to Alice’s cookie wedding dress and her zany animated blouse – all the hard work of the dedicated costumiers, Steve and Lara Hall.

Such is the success of this show that all houses have sold out, so two extra nights have been released! As always, ‘The Castle’ under the talented directorship of David Heckingbottom, has given us another professional and hilarious show. Try to catch it.