Amiable chaos in school play

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32975, 22 July 1972, Page 16

Amiable chaos in school play

“The Bedsitting Room,” by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. Produced by William Lennox for Shirley Boys’ High School. School Hall. July 20-22. Running time: 8 p.m. to 9.40. “The Bedsitting Room” began as a play which nobody liked, was made into a film which nobody liked, and has now been salvaged by Shirley Boys’ High. At last it seems to have found its level, and the school cast’s efforts at stumbling through the wreckage were greeted with obvious satisfaction from the full house. The play, of course, depicts events after the Third World War, and the whole cast made a zealous effort at simulating post-nuclear chaos. What they lacked in discipline was made up for in comic by-play, inventive stage business, and improvisation (when the properties began to disintegrate); if the production defied the standards and conventions of the usual “school play,’’ it also offered an engrossing and adventurous experiment in “school theatre.”

The play, as I have already suggested, consists of a heterogeneous heap of dramatic spare parts, which need to be auctioned off at a lively pace for the business to remain interesting. In this, the cast and producer are to be commended: not all the gags realised their true value, but at least they had the good sense to bustle through the weaker moments and allow full impact to the bits they could do well. The star of the evening was undoubtedly Paul Tredinnick, in the role of the worker who happened to be underneath the bomb when it fell; he performed like a genuine son of Milligan, and gave the rest of the cast an invaluable lead. Paul Kean, as Captain Pontius Kak, showed good stage confidence, but tended to overwork a limited range of facial gestures. Jim Lawson, in the parts of Rubber Man, Phantom, Chauffeur, and Treade Dick, set the tone for the grotesquerie of the finale, and Kevin Ward gave popular appearances in five roles. Leigh Patterson was hilarious as the Underwater

Vicar, and Phil Grimmett’s screams as the leopardskinned H-bomb Man were a rare feat of vocal pyrotechnics; Paul Birch was most successful as the TV Announcer. Gerald Mcßae (as Lord Fortnum of Alamein, who actually turns into the bedsitter) and Sheryn Mason (as Mr Heath’s daughter) both looked good in their roles, but suffered from barely adequate voices. R. W. Leask’s brief appearance was appreciated only by the perceptive. Esme Collins, Joanne Crowley, and Philip Harding made up the cast. —H.D.McN.