Good Entertainment In Repertory Society

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31210, 7 November 1966, Page 18

Good Entertainment In Repertory Society

How do you put on a fireworks display with one damp squib? It was not easy, but with a uniformly strong band of helpers and a few crackers of his own, John Kim turned Neil Simon’s very wet play “Come Blow Your Hom” into an evening of good box office entertainment. “Come Blow Your Hom” Is a play where much goes on but nothing happens—surely a director’s nightmare. John Kim made it a pacy show with slick, amusing business building towards startlingly dramatic entrances.

Who will forget Peggy (Peta Jones) leaning seductively against a door-post in a preposterous tired nylon creation, or Mum (Dooreen Corrick) standing lumpily, square-on in the doorway clutching a battered suitcase? The story is so slight it’s not worth telling. Buddy Baker (Bryan Aitken) runs away from home to live with his elder brother Alan (Huntly Eliott), in a city apartment. Dolls are a dime a dozen, but the only two who appear are Peggy, a stage-struck tigress, and Connie (Susan Budd), the girl who wants to marry Alan. It will not spoil it to know that she gets him in the end. Mum, and Dad (Derek Lowe) enter and exit explosively at inopportune moments.

Doreen Corrick as the irresistable, hypochondriacal Mum, was the star of the evening.

Bryan Aitken was reminiscent of a cross between a lovable teddy bear and a young Groucho Marx in the first two acts.

His changed attitude in Act 111 was handled with control

and assurance. This was a commendable and funny performance.

Huntly Eliott had some nice moments. Among them were his wheedling telephone manner and the casual assurance of his final exit. His performance was spirited and convincing, although lacking the urbanity expected of a city dwelling, lady-slaying man-of-the-world.

If at times the style of the production seemed to waver between farce and straight comedy, and if at times the humour was laboured, it could be excused on the grounds that all methods may be employed in drawing blood from a stone.

This is an evening of bright entertainment for all the family. It is the last Canterbury Repertory Production in the present Repertory Theatre and will run until November 12, after which it will tour to Westport. —J.M.F.