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Picture
Lucky for Some
Plays for Laughs
Dixon Studio, Palace Theatre, Westcliff-on-Sea
29th November - 3rd December 2016

Plays for Laughs raises money as well as the roof!
Plays for Laughs, the company that gave you Arsenic and Old Lace, Love Begins at 50, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime & Busybody,  presented this year’s charity production,  Lucky for Some, a comedy by John Dole. 

The play, set in a 1960s holiday camp, follows a young couple played by Tom McCarthy, last seen in Rock of Ages and Lindisfarne’s Relative Values, and Lizzie Smith, a welcome return to acting following the birth of her son.  They are on holiday to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, only to find the venue has until recently been an army camp with not many upgrades.  Much to the husband’s chagrin, he finds his wife’s parents are also there, a lovely performance by Donna Gale and Nicholas Jacobs wearing a very peculiar outfit that included bright tartan trews.

As usual, there ensues lots of misunderstandings. These involve the appearance of Bubbles Laverne (Carol Hayes) as an exotic dancer with a French accent wearing a fetching shiny, red shimmy dress, and her ex con husband, (Mervyn Howell) who is looking for a stash of money he’d previously hidden in the camp.  It was obvious the way that the play would go when we were told that an old army sign on the bathroom door, N.C.O. meant ‘no clothes on.’ 

The comedy revolves around men in underpants, dressed as a nurse or in a woman’s nightdress and Bubbles draped in a towel. With all the running in and out of wrong rooms, hiding in and under beds, much hiding in cupboards and behind screens, this was a production of chaotic entertainment. I must say that Tom McCarthy in his underpants did a spectacular number of press-ups when being taken in hand by the camp keep fit leader, Jane Harris.  Jane at one point informs us that she is Sid, and I thought the play written in the sixties was a trifle pre-emptive of the transgender fashions, when it turned out, Sid was in fact a police officer and meant C.I.D.

I particularly liked Lee Tearrell, as a wheezy porter, whose coughing was so realistic, people in the audience began to cough in stereo.  He additionally involved the audience in ad libs about the quality of the script and with good reason.  This play is not particularly well written, although this strong cast managed to tackle it with a professionalism that brought much hilarity, for which John Dole, if he is still around, should be grateful.  His plays seem to have fallen out of favour, and always had a Carry On flavour.  Amongst others, he wrote the play Cat on the Fiddle, which used to be a regular comedy for amateurs to perform, but this play is not so well known.

As due to unforeseen circumstances, the group had various cast changes and directors, it had been an uphill struggle to put the play on.  They should be praised for managing to pull it off with the help of replacement director Belinda Belt and various local actors who stood in and helped.

Plays for Laughs, created several years ago by local actress, Maggie Hooper, who gave a good turn as Mrs Curtain the charlady, raised money this time, for The Riding School for the Disabled in Belfairs’ Woods.  The play and charity for 2017 is still under discussion.​

Jacquee Storozynski Toll
Ask the Audience
Rosemarie from Benfleet
"This is my 80th birthday celebration and I have been looking forward to it, since I saw it advertised in the brochure.  I think it is very funny.  I loved the young husband, and the Nora Batty type charlady. One of the funniest bits was off stage, when a man in the audience tried to quietly go out to the loo and couldn’t find his way out through the black curtains.  We didn’t know if it was in the show as all the audience laughed."  

Jan from Bowers Gifford
"The play is excellent; they are all playing good parts."

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