In the midst o
f dreary April weather we could safely trust DADS (Dorchester Amateur Dramatic Society) to lift village spirits with cheerful shafts of sunlight via their production of Philippa Smith’s farcical romp of a play: Surprise Surprise!
To mark her seventieth birthday, Jess’s son Ben has arranged a weekend away at a rented cottage in Derbyshire. Only trouble is neither Ben nor Jess’s philandering husband Frank have bothered to turn up. So she finds herself coping with half a dozen guests whom Ben has hurriedly picked from the first page of her address book. They are guests Jess herself would almost certainly not have invited.
An ideal setting then for a lot of comic confusion, cross purposes and chaos. To be fair to the author, though, the play is not without some quite serious undertones.
Amateur actors may often wish to be mega-stars on an ego trip, but putting on a show like this is essentially a team game. Director Ann Winslet wisely assembled an experienced cast supported by a strong team of backstage stalwarts. Ann knocked them all into shape and they supported each other well on what was at times a very busy and crowded stage. The result was a seamless performance on the night I was there with no sign of any glitches and no slackening in the pace. The prompt (Rosemary Mills) had nothing to do.
Christine Jones managed the difficult lead role as the neglected birthday girl Jess with considerable skill. As the only member of the cast who behaves more or less normally and does not get many laughs, hers was an unselfish performance. But no matter how hard she tried, she did not look seventy!
The rest of guests were in varying degrees a pretty eccentric bunch. And as the cottage caretaker, Pam Potter (Rachel Winslet-Morris) kicks the play off with her usual panache – juggling loo rolls, pizzas and a Welsh accent!
Jess has most problems with Roger (Mark Williams) a divorced dermatologist – who once had a fling with Jess in Nottingham and who is now keen to resume dealings. Another smooth performance audiences have come to expect from Mark. He managed to convey deep meaning to his line: “Anyone fancy a banana sandwich?”
Jonathan and Ruth Armstrong (Ed Metcalfe and Sally Bell) make an unlikely married couple among the guests. Jonathan is a pompous, humourless chairman of his local parish council who ends up being Long John Silver with a toilet plunger attached to his knee. Ruth is a fanatical environmentalist who glues tree bark to her clothes and collects large spiders and toads because she thinks they are endangered. Both players gave entirely convincing performances.
The other married couple under a strain are Phil and Fiona Allsop (Ian Brace and Carol-Anne Tilley) but nothing a little cross-dressing and the sale of a valuable stamp collection can’t fix. Carol-Anne brought tremendous energy to her part while Ian played the wimpish husband to perfection.
Sandra Adams (Hayley Poole) who is not a comic character at all, but somehow finds relief from her sad life by the end of the play amidst all this mayhem.
Of course the best joke in the play is Joan (Maxine Briscoe) who sits in a comfy chair on stage throughout the performance and doesn’t say very much. She has not been invited to Jess’s weekend event but is a leftover from the previous holiday let at the cottage. The care home where she lives has forgotten to collect her. Fortunately Sandra is there to rescue her and invite Joan to come and live with her. A neat touch by the author to end the show with a blast of optimism.
Ed Metcalfe and Adrian Brooks put together a solid set that never quivered despite the continuous to-ing and fro-ing through four different exits. However, the portrait of the Asian lady on the wall should have had an emerald green face – not a purple one.
Finally a special compliment to Elaine Williams for her careful choice of costumes and a huge range of props- all vitally important to make the play work. I particularly liked Sandra’s toy penguin (or was it a puffin?) and the strong contrast between Fiona’s glamorous dresses and Ruth’s grim uniform for protesters trying to save the planet.