Party six pack: David Barrott’s Toby Hancock, left, Adam Marsdin’s David Hinson, Heather Patterson’s Jennifer Hinson, Catherine Edge’s on-edge party hostess Rosa Smethurst, Xandra Logan’s Sandy Lloyd-Meredeth and Helen Wilson’s party pooper Mrs Hinson in Settlement Players’ Party Piece. All pictures: John Saunders
RICHARD Harris’s fractious farces have been the staple of amateur productions country-wide, from stalwart city companies to village hall societies.
The chances are you may well have encountered Outside Edge or Stepping Out, but maybe not Party Piece, the choice of American director, writer, producer, historian, author and stuntman Martin T Brooks for his York Settlement Community Players debut.
This is the 1992 one where control-freak doctor Michael Smethurst (James Wood) and his eager-to-please wife Roma (Catherine Edge) are preparing for their fancy-dress housewarming party, an event of military precision.
On the open-plan, somewhat rudimentary set design of two houses, their back doors and gardens, dischuffed, ornery Mrs Hinson (Helen Wilson) is looking through the peep hole in the (imaginary) wall, less than enthusiastic about her posh neighbours and their gentrification of her working-class street.
Old-fashioned washing on the line, Zimmer frame always at hand, and her late husband’s shed out of bounds, she is resolutely determined to stay put and hasn’t a good word for anyone – except her son David’s ex-wife, Rosemary.
David Barrott’s Toby Hancock, dressed in the guise of Alec Guinness in The Man In The White Suit, plus a fez for no particular reason, introduces his party outfit to fancy-dress party hosts Michael Smethurst (James Wood) and his wife Rosa (Catherine Edge), attired in role reversal as Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
Mrs Hinson is the bane of North Yorkshire fruit- and-veg mini-empire boss David’s life, and even more so of sourpuss second wife Jennifer (Heather Patterson), who will never be good enough to replace Rosemary.
The party to end all parties turns out to be anything but as a series of disasters befalls the increasingly vexed Michael and Rosa, when the phonecall excuses for non-attendance pile up; the barbecue misbehaves in comedy tradition, and the Zimmer frame is lobbed over the wall.
The two guests who do turn up only add to the headache: step forward David Barrott’s Toby Hancock, an anaesthetist so dull he could send himself to sleep, and Xandra Logan’s coquettish Sandy Lloyd-Meredeth, who does something in property and has just split earlier that day from Gareth (who may or may not arrive). She is in need of a drink and company, any company, even dullard Toby.
One by one, David (Adam Marsdin), Mrs Hinson and Jennifer all pop round to the party, while Michael and Rosa make their exasperated way to the end of their tether.
All the ingredients are in place for the kind of English farce that Mischief’s mischief-makers have sent up so gloriously in The Comedy That Goes Wrong. What cannot be predicted is that Settlement’s play starts mirroring that show, misbehaving door panel et al (putting it out of use late on).
Mother and son vie for family top dog in Party Piece: Helen Wilson’s wily widow, Mrs Hinson and Adam Marsdin’s “big-in-fruit-and-veg” David Hinson
The normally reliable Helen Wilson has moments of struggling with Mrs Hinson’s lines, prompting Marsdin to whisper her cues loudly to her on a couple of occasions.
This has the effect of destabilising Settlement’s comedic rhythm, so important to farce, where confidence and timing are all. What a great shame as Helen’s grouchy dragon characterisation is spot on.
In keeping with David’s character, Marsdin takes charge, while also having fun with the practical joker in David, who tells his mother that the neighbours are called Jerry and Margo Leadbetter (Paul Eddington and Penelope Keith’s snobbish, conventional couple In The Good Life). He puts the cat further among the pigeons by informing Michael about the buried treasure in his garden.
Marsdin’s partnership with Patterson carries rather more conviction than the somewhat awkward physicality of Wood and Edge, but Harris’s wit and way with a funny line still break through the unease that took over Wednesday’s performance. Barrott and Logan gamely plough their own furrows, Logan in particular continuing her scene-stealing streak on the York stage.
York Settlement Community Players in Party Piece, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until November 1, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Martin T Brooks: Directing York Settlement Community Players for the first time