Losing The Plot
Written, Composed and Directed by Keith Burton
The title of Pateley Bridge Dramatic Society’s latest production, ‘Losing the Plot’, could easily suggest a piece about our troubled times. Happily, writer-director Keith Burton’s show offers more of an escape from them, an Ayckbourn-flavoured farce with a side order of Guy Ritchie as things turn a little bit gangster in the second act.
The Cast with Musical Director Hilary Dexter
The play itself, appropriately, has interesting roots. ‘Grounds for Divorce’, also written for PBDS by Burton some years back, made its way Off Broadway to an enthusiastic reception. “But hey,” our Transatlantic cousins opined, “wouldn’t it be fantastic with songs?”
A little while later, duly sprinkled with BabyBio, that show has been nurtured, pruned and generally landscaped into a blossoming musical production with an original score.
Gardeners Hate Snails
Memorable songs about snail crunching sit alongside poignant ballads of childhood trauma and offer real range, with a particularly inspired move to include a chorus of singing Sunflowers.
A Chorus of Singing Sunflowers
Music is provided by Hilary Dexter, well up to the unenviable task of recreating songs built for an orchestra on a single keyboard (and rightly given her due at the end of the show). They’re performed with great gusto by the cast – with a special mention to Connie Richards’ Ellie, who navigates technically challenging songs with impressive confidence and genuine feeling.
Connie Richards as Ellie
The broad story is unchanged, centring first on shenanigans around who is really growing the prize-winning vegetables at the village show, descending into authentic skullduggery as a darker thread about money laundering and frustrated domesticity emerges.
The lead actors take it in turns to drive the story onwards. Peter Buller as Tommy is skilfully bemused throughout, in turns exasperated and baffled by people’s motivations when all he wants to do is grow marrows and sunflowers.
Peter Buller as Tommy
His foil, Rupert, begins on a similar level but Jerry Harvey deftly unveils a darker side with a willingness to put the (steel toe-capped) boot in.
Jerry Harvey as Rupert
Sitting between them, Penelope (Carol Bailey, always charismatic on stage) is obsessed with order and seems to be the archetypal Middle-Englander, but hides her own ghosts, counterbalanced by Cilla – a no-nonsense Sally Smith – who wants certainty and often stands in for the audience as she looks around demanding what on earth is going on.
Carol Bailey as Penelope
Sally Smith as Cilla
We wouldn’t be in farceville without some curious love stories, duly provided by the excellent Connie Richards and Darryl Hall, as Ellie and Doland – neither really who they seem at first and gradually drawn together; and ageing hippy Goodwill (Michael Thorne channelling Shaggy from Scooby Doo via Austin Powers and clearly having a ball), who has a past with Penelope and Ellie.
Connie Richards as Ellie and Darryl Hall as Doland
Michael Thorne as Goodwill
I saw the original ‘Grounds for Divorce’ in its first run at PBDS. The addition of songs has taken an already accomplished farce and thrust it into the hothouse – ‘Losing the Plot’ is bigger, louder, more colourful and even more capable of provoking hoots, sighs and groans.
It’s a vibrant show, with great contributions from a true ensemble. There are some poignant scenes (from Smith and Richards in particular) and dashings of accomplished physical comedy (Bailey and Thorne are given a moment that lives long in the memory – no-one in the audience will think of the Bee Gees in the same way again).
All in all the show is worthy of a winning rosette. And highly commended goes to the Off-Broadway crowd who inspired it. In keeping with the theme, they really know their onions.
Chris Iredale as Tall Sunflower
Review by Russ Thorne
Photographs by Chris Iredale and Jerry Harvey