Double Bill

‘Double Bill - Two One Act Comedies’. Two very different comedies for the price of one are being presented by the Melville Theatre Company at the Melville Theatre, on the corner of Stock Road and Canning Highway, Palmyra until Saturday 16^th February. Curtains up at 8.00 pm, ending at 9.45 pm.

The lighting operator for both plays was Craig Menner and the smooth sound operating by Georgia Everett.

‘Hands across the Sea’ by Noel Coward, was considered ‘the best short comedy ever written’ by dramatist Terence Rattigan.

It is 1936, the year after it was first presented in Manchester. The scene is a beautifully furnished flat in Mayfair, in London’s west end.

        Commander Gilpin (Cary Hudson) and his upper crust wife, Lady Maureen - known as Piggie to her friends (Katrina Murphy) - are about to have a cocktail party, and so go for a lie-down before the visitors arrive.

        Years ago, whilst on holiday in Malaya, Piggie met a quiet, slightly hen pecked man (Glenn Rykenrapp) and his inquisitive wife (Di Ryman). Piggie had casually mentioned that the couple should ‘pop in’ next time they were in London. Now, the couple were in town, but Piggie is in a turmoil, was it they that owned the rubber plantation and were called Rawlingsons? Or were they the Wadhursts?

       After a few phone calls to recruit friends to the tea party, the guests begin to arrive and as they are shown into the lounge by Walters, the maid (Randi Beck) it seems that, yet again, the Gilpins can't quite remember who they have invited. Who is the bashful, anxious man (Sean Bullock) with the roll of paper that has arrived at the same time? Is he the foreign visitors’ son? 

      No sooner had Commander Peter asked Captain Alistair (Faraz Hedayat) if he will take the visitors on a tour of the Portsmouth docks, than more friends, the noisy, bossy Clare (Val Riches) and he partner Bogey (Neil Walker) arrive and treat the flat as their own and the other guests are their servants.

Director Tarryn Bullock had to face a major problem; there were no written funny lines as such; just like the Peter Sellers’ cinema classic ‘The Party’ it was the madness of the situation and the interaction of the guests that mattered. Tarryn got her strong team together, explained their characters and the whole teamwork just glowed. The dead pan delivery, the chaos, the incessant phone calls - the fun just unrolled. Excellent pace and teamwork.

‘Someone Called Rob’ by local playwright, Martin Lindsay. This Melville member has already had couple of successes, ‘One Night Stand Off’ and ‘Brown Acid’.

        In a typical bachelor flat, the phone is ringing. Star Wars fan, Rob (Rob Gander) staggers to answer it. It is a furious man called Adam (Faraz Hedayat) livid at Rob for signing the birthday card of his girlfriend, Kate (Ruhama Geiger). Adam makes threats that he will come around and sort Rob out. Rob tries to explain that he doesn’t really know the girl and that he was drunk when he signed it, but Adam could not be pacified.

       Later that night Kate and her friend (Annie Blatchford) are drunk. Her friend pushes a few buttons on Kate’s phone and in error dials Rob. The jealousy gets worse, and Rob’s safety becomes in doubt.

This new comedy, from the pen of Martin Lindsay, bravely delivered the tale in an unusual genre. All of the characters speak normally, but Rob offers a great deal of internal dialogue (his thoughts of what to do next and his feelings about the situation). Skilled director, Jeff Hansen, keeps the interest and the pace up beautifully. There were patches in the dialogue that referred to what Rob was physically doing at the time, these  odd lines could be thinned out, but generally speaking, this style that allowed us to hear the panic in Rob’s thoughts was very funny. Congratulations to both casts for something a little different.