Finger in the Dyke

‘A Finger in the Dyke’ is an adult pantomime by West Australian playwright Elaine Emm. This two-hour production is by Herding Cats Productions and is showing at St Mark’s Hall, Parker Street, Bassendean. This short run has two matinees one at 2.00 pm on Saturday 27^th and the other on Sunday 28^th, the last evening performance being on Saturday the 27^th August.  Curtain up at 8.00 pm.

 

        Voluptuous and sparkling Jessie (Natalie Ryan-Brand) runs the Finger in the Dyke restaurant with her young partner, the ambitious, effervescent chef, Samantha (Jessica Hegarty). Samantha’s recipes leave a lot to be desired and a strong stomach to consume them.
       When celebrity TV chef, Clifford Clifford (Jeffrey Watkins) arrives to do a critique on the restaurant, it is make or break time for the girls. It is also crunch time for Clifford who has the overtly gay Producer from hell (Ryan McNally) breathing down his neck.
Will the restaurant survive?

 

 

First the bad news.
The tickets at $40 per head are quite a bit dearer than usual, but the proceeds of the first night were in aid of the very worthy Bassendean Theatre Restoration Project. However, why weren’t the tickets cut to half price for the rest of the season? Good luck in filling the plastic seats in the church hall at those prices.
The programmes were a gold coin (normal – but at those seat prices, could have been free). The programme didn’t list the characters and the actors playing the parts, no list of sound and lighting technicians, and most amazingly no mention of the director’s name on the posters or programme – good move, I wouldn’t have put my name to the direction either.
The lighting was faded up and down – finding the level on the night. The set was quite good although the mirror ball and laser Snoopys didn’t add anything.
The announcement on this site states the curtain up is at 7.30 pm; it was officially 8.00 pm although the slack organisation eventually got around to starting at 8.20.
After the interval the front of house staff entered carrying samples of Samantha’s cooking (delicious), but the lighting operator stood up and shouted across the theatre, ‘not yet, take them away!’
The City Mayor and a Councillor were in the audience and yet the organisation was appalling. There didn’t seem to be anyone in charge. The interval started at 9.40 and finished 30 minutes later at 10.10. The director stood most of this time at the front of the stage with a beer in his hand. The show thankfully finished 20 minutes later at 10.30.
The script could be thinned by 20% and the pace increased a little.
Set changes totally unrehearsed.
Described as ‘a farce’, I think that must have referred to the production.

 

The good news
The costumes (Barbara Walton) were excellent.
The warmth of reception by front of house was brilliant.
The acting was astonishingly good from the cast of five. This very strong troupe worked their guts out and brought great mirth to some very thin situations. If the Finleys have a comedy prize then Jessica Hegarty’s pasta-rolling description is well in the running. Brilliant performances in the childish pantomime style. The actors all let their hair down and went for their mad parts with gusto.

I hope the Church does well out of this show.

The pasta rolling really cracked me up. Odd, I was told the programmes would be free, so my review reflects that. The actors are listed on page 5 of the programme but not the parts they play. Is it possible the middle page dropped out of yours? They're not stapled. I will be very interested to see the development of this play when I see a public performance on Saturday. --Why do I always end up writing reviews late at night?

Sorry you got a faulty programme Gordon. They were in fact free as was the tea, coffee, cakes and other comestibles. The full programmes also contained a potted history of the building, full cast and crew credits. The donation jars were all around the theatre for generous souls to help the restoration of a gem of a building; no compulsion was intended. Apologies for the chairs, however as the theatre has been unused for 30 years we couldn't find the originals and had to use what we could find, kindly donated by the Town of Bassendean. I hope you return when the Hall is up to standards (We estimate about a 18 months) it will contain folding theatre seats, a projector, cinema screen, curtains etc. This show is the first of the fundraisers and activities planned which includes 'Battle of the bands' A film Festival, One act play competition etc. 30 tickets have been donated to those who could not afford tickets at all and the Saturday Matinee is $10.00 day for pension and concession holders. As a new organisation with set up costs; 3phase installation, lighting, staging, scaffolding etc etc and a wish to embrace all the community especially those on very limited incomes the ticket price reflects that. You are correct, the ensemble of actors is tremendous. They each deserve awards. The reward was, of course the continuous ripples and guffaws of laughter and the genuine and heartfelt congratulations and rebookings by many first nighters. Equally the Front of House are lovely people. Thankyou for the compliments they all worked tremendously hard. Thankyou for taking the time to review the show Gordon, we are hoping that amateur theatre, dance troupes, puppeteers will make full use of the facility and you will have a chance to review more favourably their capabilities.

Having read two reports of the Herding Cats’ maiden season - A Finger in the Dyke – I could only wonder if the writers had been at the same theatre, on the same night, and had witnessed the same production of the same text. Having now seen the show for myself, I prefer Ms Smith's account which, while she might have been wearing slightly rose-tinted eyeware, paid worthy attention to details and issues not touched upon by Mr Optom, whose myopia and tunnel vision seems to have led him to see the show through infra-red night vision goggles favoured by elite military units on an assassination job. He really ought to see an … oops, of course! But I am not going to try to average-out the differences between two interpretations of the show; nor am I minded to provide a third. Rather, I want to essay a tentative critique on the burden of responsibility on verbose reviewers like Mr O to set aside old prejudices and apparently unresolved issues with church halls, the Anglican Church as a whole, Bassendean, the price of inadequate (but free) programs, the price of plastic seats at what he considers to be a unacceptably high ticket-cost but which also covers snacks and drinks, (admittedly while inviting voluntary contributions to enable the venue to reach its full potential), Snoopy, etc, etc. By all means identify the faults he sees in the production but it is not helpful, to the Company or to potential audiences, to dismiss it in such swingeing terms as seem, in this case, to come readily to Mr O’s keyboard. A pity he could not get beyond such trivia to treat of the product in the wider context of the aspirations and efforts of the producing organisation and the interest of both the Bassendean Council, and the Parish in sponsoring the arts. Without Ms Smith's more positive comments, these sponsors might well have been excused for relegating this project to the back-burner. While Mr O is not a dentist he might have simply noted the teething problems facing a new, unfunded professional Company whose main assets are the energy, talent and commitment of its personnel. A few encouraging words about the innovative approach this company is developing to provide not only Bassendean but the wider community with the basis of a stimulating arts program would not have gone amiss. It's been a long time since Rolf Harris left town. Now I see that, on behalf of Herding Cats, Elaine Emm has addressed Mr O's specific complaints; it therefore remains for me only to note that, last night (Friday), I estimated that 75% of the sold seats were occupied by a warm and receptive audience, and half of the front rows allocated to invited guests of the Bassendean Council as part of the Company's collaboration with the sponsoring Council were filled by equally-entertained and well-fed folk. Certainly, as Director for the Company's 2012 season of The Merry Wives of Windsor, I look forward to working with the energetic and innovative mob at Herding Cats. Alan Malcolm, progenitor-in-chief of Herding Cats, might have the genes of Candide, Pangloss and Peter Pan; I can only hope that Mr O’s Captain Hook loses his eye patch soon. FLIPMAC

It was the same theatre, and the same production of the same text, but not the same night. I went to the last rehearsal, but Gordon went to the opening night, I believe. On the up side, I went to the matinee yesterday, and I believe that a lot of the issues Gordon had were well addressed. A very fun show and brilliant with a full audience. -Why do I always end up writing reviews late at night?

I agree with Gordon's critic, this show (for a professional cast) was really disappointing, the set finishing, was... unfinished, the acting was sub par, and I couldnt understand half of the dialoge and the 'audience interaction' was embarrising for the actors, as well as the over all unproffessional feeling to the whole thing, the only redeeming feature of this show was the costuming other than that this 'production' felt like a highschool performance. - Thomas

One can forgive bad chairs if the show is any good. Unfortunately, it is not any good. Well done to the actors - all worked extremely well with an underdeveloped, 2 hours too long, and generally bad 'script'.

Please people, allow other people an opinion. Gordon does us a service. He's almost the only person in town who'll put his name to a review these days and lots of people wait for his opinion. He gave an account of what he saw. Don't hit a man wearing glasses.