With only half a dozen people in the audience this production was a valiant effort. Hannah Brooks and Scott Goodair managed to keep their small audience amused and interested for the whole hour and the two plays with different authors, Steven Bloomer and Peter Quilter, moved seamlessly from one to the other with hardly a gap.
The first play is about the break up of a relationship. It is cleverly staged; for example a couple are in bed, amusingly depicted by Scott holding a pillow behind his head as shown in the publicity photographs, and a duvet laid over a table became a bed. There are many clever one-line jokes. The play shows how a woman and a man, both very needy, find it difficult to give up on their relationship even though it is not ideal and they obviously don’t really understand each other.
In the second short play Angela is marrying for the third time. The family and friends are all waiting off stage and her long suffering and possibly insufferable older brother is trying to encourage her to hurry up and get herself out to the reception and waiting crowd. She, however, does not want to go through with it or leave the comfort of the room, until she knows she has his approval, which he because of his nature neither wants to give or to refuse. She won’t move until she has had a coffee. She spills it down her dress, and then tries ineffectually to clean it. The dress gets ripped and a mirror gets broken. These accidents, which the bride takes as bad omens; are cleverly handled by the actors. Finally a wet, bedraggled Angela is pushed off stage with her hair in a mess and the front of her dress hanging open.
The problem was, however, that because it was such a small audience and there was thus very little atmosphere, the comedy did not really carry the piece along. If the one-liners had received the guffaws that they deserved, the actors would have relaxed and the whole thing would have come alive. But unfortunately it was a little like watching a couple of TV sketches without the canned laughter in place. We had very little sympathy for the characters and so what TicTac were trying to achieve: “ character driven story telling”, was rather lost.
I look forward to seeing them again with a packed house and the theatrical atmosphere that they deserve. ★★★☆☆ Keith Erskine 15th April 2016
