See How They Run, Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke (From Daily Echo)

See How They Run, Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke

in Stage Reviews

MULTIPLE mistaken identities and madcap mayhem in a village vicarage form the backdrop to this uproarious farce set during the Second World War.

When Lance-Corporal Clive Winton (David Partridge), a former acting colleague, drops in on vicar’s wife Penelope Toop (Siobhan O’Kelly) in sleepy Merton-Cum-Middlewick, the old friends decide to head out for a night on the town while the vicar is away.

Worried about being seen out in uniform, the soldier swaps his clothes for one of the vicar’s spare suits, dog collar and all, and when he and Penelope then jokingly act out a scene from a play they once toured in, which involves them rolling around on the floor together, who should walk in but prim and proper village busybody Miss Skillon (Lucy Speed).

She becomes the first of many people that night to get the wrong end of the stick, as a variety of clergymen come and go until – without giving too much away – we eventually end up with four vicars (two of them real and two imposters) plus a bishop, with one very confused Army sergeant (Sebastian Abineri) trying to make sense of the whole mixedup mess!

In the more than capable hands of a splendid Original Theatre Company cast, Philip King’s beautifully layered comedy, directed by Chris Harper, is a real gem.

Former EastEnders star Speed displays a great talent for physical comedy in laugh-out-loud scenes where she is drunkenly and unsuccessfully trying to get herself up from a sofa, while Arthur Bostrom (Officer Crabtree in the long-running BBC sitcom ’Allo ’Allo!), revels in his role as the bewildered and baffled Bishop of Lax.

But stealing the show is Rachel Donovan, whose effervescent turn as cheeky Cockney maid Ida reaches its zenith in a wonderful scene where she is haplessly but hilariously trying to mime to Penelope that Miss Skillon has passed out in the living room cupboard.

With impeccable comic timing all round, a wonderfully funny chase scene, and the inevitable loss of trousers from one character, this is fast and furious farce of the very highest order.