Over My Dead Body

The Basin Theatre Company have presented some terrific productions of a very high standard over the years (I still smile at the memory of their last production), so it’s a pity that this latest offering is something of a disappointment, and not of their usual standard.

There’s no sole reason for this, but rather a combination of factors. Derek Benfield is a favourite playwright of community theatre, but his plays are somewhat plodding and pedestrian, and tend to cover the same ground repeatedly. There’s a large inbuilt boredom factor along with whimsy, rather than comedy. It takes great pace, energy and movement to really get the most out of the slight plot, which concerns Gerald, recently widowed, who is looking forward to a life of peace and quiet only to find that his daughter and dead wife have planned his future for him. That pace and energy haven’t been realised by Director Joe Tuppenney, whose staging has only added to the pedestrian nature of the text.

The play had been running for a week when I saw it, so I really have no explanation for why Roderick Chappel (Gerald) and Janet Withers (Amanda) constantly fluffed lines and even dried on occasion, as well as being interminably slow to pick up cues. Any pace there might have been was lost totally in their scenes together. Perhaps it’s the repetitive nature of the script, where lines from one scene seem almost identical to lines from another.

The rest of the cast do their best, with honours to Tamara Hill-Beary as the fussy, over anxious daughter Shirley, and Alan Thompson as her long suffering but caring husband. But even their attempts to inject pace fell victim to some awkward stage silences. Sonya Wilson (Isobel) was able to amuse with a performance that paid homage to the great Prunella Scales and Allyson Hunt (Mrs Capstick) struggled to make something out of a character with no credibility whatsoever (shame on the writer). There is one lovely moment at the end when the pretence that dead Helen’s ghost has returned turns out to be true, but unfortunately it’s not enough.

The Basin Theatre, as always, was welcoming and hospitable with its usual glass of sherry and refreshments in the interval and supper afterwards. But the play was drier than the sherry on this occasion. Here’s to next year.

Coral Drouyn