Office Hours - Quick review — Theatre Australia Forums

Just got home from tonight (mon 26th) performance of "Office Hours" at Harbour Theatre in Fremantle and I say a great thanks to the cast for such a great performance. A million laughs and the audience was definately enjoying the show! Quite a large and dedicated cast featured in this show with a few people taking on multiple roles. The show follows interlinking characters and stories from six different offices - all on the same street. Full of bumps (And in Arty's case quite a large 'bump')and twists this play is choked full of brilliant one liners and hilarious characters!! I can imagine the blast these guys had with these characters in rehearsal they are absolutely wonderful. The script is well written and each story is slowly slotted together with hints being dropped here and there (and if you're quick you'll pick it up before intermission) about the wonderful finish. A special mention go to my favourites Tom & Judy who pull off a wonderful husband and wife team. (And no Judy, you're not dominearing!) And to Nicola's psychiatrist who has some of the best lines in the show. My hats off to all involved. A wonderful job and definately worth a look see. ~ Tari

‘Office Hours’ a comedy by Canadian playwright Norm Foster, is showing at the Harbour Theatre in Fremantle, nightly at 8.00pm until 1^st December.

This is a series of six bright, quirky sketches all of which are enacted in different, upmarket offices in a central city block. Some of the brief plots rely upon the wacky situation for the comedy; the others are more dialogue based. Each hilarious tale has two or three actors, so there are about a dozen very different and interesting characters, wonderfully portrayed by the talented cast of well-known faces.

The stories are subtly linked, and in the final extremely funny and outrageous piece, the storylines come together.

Thankfully the director (Susan Lynch) has chosen to play the characters straight rather than caricatured. With their normal, everyday conversation style of delivery, the humour is even more bizarre. This approach gives a wonderful freshness and belief in the individuals. When stories are short – most were 12 minutes - it is very difficult to get the audience informed as to the situation and to believe the personalities, however this worked beautifully in this show.

The acting standard was well above average and the whole cast delivered their punch lines skilfully. As they all worked majestically as a team, it may be a little unfair to single out Peter Bloor (with his laugh of the night – an extremely topical aside), Judy Pinnock and Nicola Bond as outstanding.

A quality set which, after an extremely brief closing of the curtain, reopened every time to reveal another convincingly different office theme and decor. Slick work by the stage team.

Booking is advisable, as even on the Monday night it was a full house! Some of the audience were back for a second time.

Quite a few belly laughs.

Office Hours - Quick review

agreed a fun show

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