Suit you sir and everyone else!

NORMALLY, I am not a great fan of knockabout comedy. Too many people running around, hiding in bedrooms, pretending to be someone else and you need an I.Q. of 150+ to work out what's happening and who's supposed to be who.

However, I would certainly make an exception for 'Don't Dress For Dinner', running at Stanford Hall last week and much of the credit for that must gor to the Falcon Players slick acting and impeccable sense of timing.

Good comedy depends on timing; miss a beat and the humour flops. The Falcon team maintained the rhythm because everyone was word perfect and aware of what the other actors were doing and saying - they played off each other splendidly.

Twice the audience reacted spontaneously with applause in the middle of the play; once to a bit of visual comedy involving a dress, the other to a very complicated piece of verbal dexterity. We were responding to the skill and expertise of the cast.

After a quiet start, the play picked up speed and humour. Stuart Bailey (Stuart) and Yvonne Marshall (Jacqueline) were excellent as husband and wife hiding their mistress and lover from each other, resulting in Bernard changing his shirt every few minutes! Alan Whiteland (Robert) was suitably confused being whacked like a shuttlecock between the pair and Laraine Gibson (Suzanne) simmered like a volcano under the indignity of a mistress pretending to be a cook.

John Buttfield, enjoyed his cameo role as George, the aggressive husband, but Katherine Heygate's Suzette was a joy to watch. She really did sparkle in her role as the cook who has to become mistress/neice/everybody to fit the others' alibis and who walks out with a Chanel coat and a fistful of francs!

This was live theatre at its best! The Falcon Players are putting on a Ray Cooney farce in May; go along and find out for yourself just how good this company is at making you laugh.

Roy Jones
Loughborough Echo