We have reviewed three or four plays by Malvern based Nick Wilkes and his company Malvern Bard and usually we have been impressed. In the past nine years the company has mounted twenty-one productions of eighteen new plays in ten venues. Not bad going at all.
Mr Wilkes’ latest offering, Lost the Plot, again has, like the last one I saw, Murder By Word, echoes of Harold Pinter and Joe Orton. The play concerns two cousins, Sam, a simple but decent sort of chap and Bill, best described as a miserable old git. They scrape a living by, among other things, digging graves in the village church-yard and the action takes place in their chilly hut in the graveyard.
It starts off easily enough until moaning Bill discovers he has lost the treasured hip-flask that was a gift from his now dead girlfriend. He believes it has fallen into the last grave they dug so they decide to go back in to look for it. Apparently the coffins were double parked so they bring the older one back to the hut and have a rummage only to find it has strange markings and even stranger contents – namely a mysterious map drawn on the back of a label from a very expensive bottle of old Spanish wine.
This is where it all becomes rather macabre and complicated and any further description would be a spoiler. Suffice to say, it seems Bill hadn’t lost his hip-flask at all and had ulterior motives for opening up the grave. It is basically a good yarn nicely played by the author himself as Sam and another regular, Murray Andrews, as glum Bill.
I enjoyed it but I think there were a couple of issues which probably need resolving. Firstly, it was much too slow. Believe me, watching somebody filling and boiling a kettle ain’t that interesting, nor is the constant fiddling with and moving of a small heater. I think the problem was mainly in the direction and the production could do with a lot of tightening up and some judicious pruning – lose twenty minutes and it could be really good.
The other thing was, like with Murder by Word, there was not enough comic relief, although the opportunities were there. I know it was a small and therefore unresponsive audience last night and that it would play much better to a full house but I think there were still many instances where the ghoulish situation could be exploited for some black humour.
I think Lost the Plot could be an excellent play but it needs some work. From what I have seen, Mr Wilkes and his company are certainly capable of doing what is necessary and hopefully, playing to a bigger, more reactive audience and a quick return to the drawing board will help them produce something really worthwhile. It will be interesting to see how it develops. ★★★☆☆ Michael Hasted 26th April 2016
