|
In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter has made the unfortunate mistake of offending Time, and is now stuck at six o'clock with his friends. Six o'clock being teatime in Wonderland, the Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse are thus forced to hold a perpetual tea party, exchanging seats around the table to get to clean cups in an increasingly insane fashion. An unexpectedly early teatime results in an equally cacophonous mayhem when a ragtag crew of crooks find themselves giving an impromptu string concert to a gaggle of eager old ladies in the Tower Theatre's production of Graham Linehan's The Ladykillers - and adaptation of the 1955 film by William Rose.
The play begins with Mrs Wilberforce (Alison Liney), (a lady of advanced years), looking for a lodger to take up the spare room in her
slightly lopsided house, which she shares with her disease-ridden parrot General Gordon. For such an observant woman - she keeps a keen eye
on the suspected neighbourhood Nazis and space aliens - Mrs Wilberforce surprisingly does not see through her first (and only) flatmate candidate, grand artiste Professor Marcus (Ed Malcomson), who waltzes in pronouncing everything charming, and grabs the room without a moment's hesitation. But, as we quickly discover, the professor's talents lie not in adagio or pizzicato , but rather in composing the perfect heist.
The heart of the play is unquestionably the lady herself, Mrs Wilberforce, portrayed to perfection by Alison Liney. Liney masterfully drifts between confusion on the verge of senility and matronly authority where nothing escapes her notice. Her counterpart is so-called Professor Marcus, who fancies himself a criminal mastermind in the manner of Professor Moriarty, even if his master plan is hatched in an old lady's cramped spare room with the aid of a nightstand and a cushion. Ed Malcomson gives a dazzlingly energetic performance, gesturing and articulating with a panache befitting Marcus's idea of his own brilliance (Harry Potter fans in the audience surely can't not be reminded of Kenneth Branagh as the equally pompous Gilderoy Lockhart).
Next we meet Marcus's "musicians", who certainly aren't the sleek Rat Pack-type criminal brotherhood Marcus must have had in mind, but rather quite possibly the only posse he could muster.
Louis/Mr Harvey, portrayed by Alex T Hornby, is a surly Romanian gangster, whose only fear in life seems to be old ladies forcing him to
listen to fairytales in the dark. Hornby does a very good job at uttering both chilling threats ("I actually lost a knife inside the last
person who laughed at me") and disturbingly incorrectly phrased idioms ("I don't like old ladies - they give me the penises") in a cool, curt Eastern European accent. His opposite in the gang is Dan Usztan as One-round/Mr Lawson, a big burly ex-boxer with a soft spot for the elderly. Usztan's expressions and mannerisms perfectly capture the nature of the least sharp member of the group, where his general air of faint puzzlement can at crucial moments give way to unstoppable determination - and then you best be far away, which is something that Harry/Mr Robinson learns the hard way. Harry (Samuel Currie-Smith) is the fresh young charmer of the troupe, behind whose babyface lies a massive case of OCD. Anxiety - and that he has in abundance - makes him clean compulsively, a habit which Currie-Smith depicts with a delightful frenzy. Finally, an even more nervous creature, Claude/Major Courtney (Michael Bettell), rounds up the crew. Bettell is comically shaky as the faux war-hero / Ghost Squad officer, who has a penchant for women's dresses to rival any Monty Python lumberjack.
Despite Louis's objections, Marcus decides to include Mrs Wilberforce as the final masterstroke in his heist plan
("Just think of her as a silent partner. A very chatty silent partner."). In exchange the bogus Professor promises that the quintet will perform at Mrs W's next soiree, which she quite presciently pronounces will be "just like my 21st birthday again", the original having ended abruptly with the news of Queen Victoria's death. The plan is put into action, after which we see the robbers returning to the boarding-house in a scene that offers several laughs, from the Major fondling Mrs Wilberforce's dress, to One-Round belting out "IS ANYONE BACK FROM THE ROBBERY" when nobody is there to meet him. In an even more hilarious moment, the gang is discovered hiding in a cramped closet by startled Mrs Wilberfore and Constable MacDonald. When queried about this odd meeting locale, Marcus's answer is "Why Mrs Wilberfore, we are artists!". Who could argue with that?
The scene of the crew preparing to depart with their loot flows delightfully, with the Major wiping fingerprints off surfaces, Harry following closely behind rubbing the exact same spots, One-Round piled with the instrument cases and Louis smoking coolly by the door. But, of course, then everything goes wrong, and Mrs Wilberforce finally understands what her lodgers have really been up to, and no amount of convincing from expensive Egyptian ostrich strings, to Romanian orphanages, will stop her from calling the police. What does however, is the sudden arrival of Mrs W's society of loose ladies (Niki Mylonas, Lynda Twidale, Charlotte Mackintosh, Peter Novis), which also sparks a riotous exchange on the correct hour for teatime. Mrs Tromleyton (Mylonas) heads this group of feisty elderly women, who flutter around the "musicians" as if a string concert is the most exciting thing to ever happen at (the abominably early) teatime - and it probably is. The first act closes with Marcus having no option but to coax a post modern concert of cacophony out of his gang.
The second act opens with Mrs Wilberforce's ladies heaping praise on the "musicians" while the hostess herself watches in classical disbelief. "Being fooled by art is one of the primary pleasures afforded the middle class," explains Marcus. But, Mrs W cannot be fooled again, and so to be allowed to depart with the money, the gang must now kill the little lady. One by one they grudgingly take up the task, only to be met with their own demise (except for One-Round, who insists that Mrs W not be harmed, but then finds himself with a suitably comical looking knife sticking out of his forehead in one of the play's blackest moments).
Finally we are left with only the bogus Professor himself, who has disposed of Louis for having criticised his plan (even if only constructively!), but the self-styled criminal mastermind seems incapable of executing the lady, or even shoving her aside when she guards the front door in a manner evoking Gandalf the Grey ("You shall not pass, Professor"). The money case will not fit through the window either, and in the end Marcus expires just like his partners, courtesy of a lower quadrant semaphore signal (ask your local gricer).
Director Julian Farrance has put together a well-paced, funny and energetic show, which garners laughs even at its more morbid moments. The set has been excellently designed by Michael Bettell, Jude Chalk and Bernard Brennan, using almost the whole length of the theatre and encompassing several levels.A set to die for, (or die on, as most of the characters eventually find out). The house itself is charmingly lopsided, with perilously perched jars on skewed kitchen shelves and not a single straight picture frame on the walls. The tables shake convincingly with passing trains and during a fantastically choreographed fight scene, the supporting poles of the bannister come flying off. Adam Taylor's lighting design, operated by Jessie Baker is pitch-perfect as well, moving between the living room and the bedroom, flickering as the trains pass.
Ruth Sullivan's sound design, operated by Kaushal Ginige, is especially brilliant with General Gordon (voiced by Peter Novis), who clearly
speaks from his cage "Please stay for tea!". The costumes designed by Lynda Twidale capture the characters well, from Harry's immaculate
suit to Mrs Wilberforce's old-fashioned yellow dress, and of course, Marcus's extra, extra-long scarf. Special mention must go to Michael
Mayne's forever understanding Constable Macdonald who perfectly bookends the play as the local bobby who wonders what he must have done to
have ended up with Mrs Wilberforce on his beat. His return visit signals a return to sanity, if not investigative competence. We could be
excused for thinking that this may have all been a figment of Mrs Wilberforce's lively imagination ("And they all just ... vanished, is that right?"), if not for the case full of money in the spare room. Seems the little lady might have unwittingly been the criminal mastermind all along, but the real winner is of course General Gordon, who will now have a new lease on life courtesy of expensive American Veternarians.
Photography by David Sprecher
|
