Therry Theatre. Arts Theatre. 11 Nov 2022
Tearing in at the end of a show’s run is an unfair way to give it a review. Sometimes circumstances cannot be helped. But, oh what a downright pity it is that the theatre-going public cannot be warned that missing out on this show is to miss out on a belly full of laughs and giggles.
So, unless you can speed down to the arts this very night, November 12, you’ve missed it.
Bedside Manners is a British farce by Derek Benfield. It centres around a hapless fellow standing in for his sister as receptionist at an English countryside hotel. The room phones are out of order and the guests are both devious and needy. They are having naughty weekends. There are lots of doors and cross-purposes in a wonderfully complicated but efficient and good-looking set designed by Gary Anderson.
There’s a cast of five, two couples and the aforementioned stand-in receptionist, Ferris. David Sinclair gets a workout which leaves the audience exhausted just watching him as he thunders up and down the stairs between the reception desk and the two guest rooms, dealing with the ever accruing shambles which the guests bring upon themselves. It is ridiculously silly and cumulatively hilarious. The upstairs bedrooms are very small and there is a lot of footwork for the actors, all very artfully directed by Jude Hines.
Between the direction, the set, and the tight focus of the actors, it is really quite a physical masterpiece.
David Sinclair embodies poor old, long-suffering, over-tipped Ferris with nice comic nuance while Steven Bills and Patrick Clements deliver a couple of smarmily devious infidels losing themselves and the kitchen sink on the world’s worst lost weekend in the country. Their targets of desire are very pukkah County women, colourfully stereotyped by Rose Harvey and, with extra bells on for exquisite impeccability, Leah Lowe.
The whole show is just a jolly good giggle tonic.
Samela Harris
When: 3 to 12 Nov
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: Closed
