Round and Round the Garden **** 1/2

‘Round and Round the Garden’ is an amateur production showing at 8 pm nightly at the Old Mill Theatre, South Perth until the 22^nd of July.

It is the third play in the trilogy ‘The Norman Conquests’, written by Sir Alan Ayckbourn about the lives of the same group of characters living in the south of England. The first play in the set ‘Table Manners’ is also showing at the Darlington Players’ Marloo Theatre in Greenmount until 15^th July. The plays are not about 1066, but about Norman, who despite being married to Ruth seems to be permanently on heat.

In this play Annie (Danielle Ashton) is looking after her aged mother, so has little social life. The local vet, Tom (Phil Barnett) has fancied her for years but hasn’t even gathered the courage to hold her hand. Annie’s brother, Reg (Michael Dornan) a henpecked yuppie arrives at the house with his wife from hell – or is this a façade? – Sarah (Jayma Knudson) to help out. Norman (Chris Juckes – sorry if this is wrong but the programme has two spellings of the surname) is hovering around hoping that he can nip off and have a dirty weekend with Annie in Hastings. Even when his wife Ruth (Leanne McKenna) turns up his style isn’t cramped.

Ayckbourn is very difficult to perform well. His plays have clever lines which require perfect diction and delivery. The characters must be strong and convincing. This production, under the superb direction of Sue Hayward (not surprisingly won a director of the year 2005 award), produced a flawless play. The whole cast worked as a team, their body language and facial expressions were extremely convincing. Even newcomer, Leanne, with a considerable amount of script was spot on with her first night on the stage ever.

Jayma has done comedy at the Melville Theatre and has improved since I last saw her a year ago. The whole cast was brilliant, but I’m sure that they won’t mind me making special mention of Chris Juckes, a tremendously funny actor, new to the area from the UK. His ‘amiable drunk’ scene was hilarious.

Technically a little weak. Has the master dimmer got a lose connection? As the lighting cues ‘wobbled’ several times at the start of each dim.

Thoroughly recommended, extremely funny.