Holiday Snap

The setting for this enjoyable, fast-paced comedy is a time-share accommodation in sunny Portugal. However, things go dramatically wrong from the very start as the audience are subjected to a blitzkrieg of mistaken identities that become more complex as the play unravels.

The accommodation is run by the eccentric, colonial-like figure of Commander ‘Chitto’ Chittenden, brilliantly played by Robert De Rooy, who is a danger to everybody around him, including himself. The mayhem begins when ‘Chitto’ foolishly double books the accommodation for the second week of July. The result is that two couples arrive at the same time, but each believes that the other couple is the hired Portuguese help.

Alice Bosenquet as Eve and Tiago Flores as Leslie play the first couple, challenged by Mara Turner as Mary and Kevin Woodward as Henry as the second couple. All four give excellent performances, particularly in the hilarious scene where both couples mistake the other for the Portuguese speaking help and revert to communicating in Portuguese ‘baby-talk’ until discovering that they are all English speakers.

The plot is further complicated by the arrival of Carey Leahy as Celia who happens to be Henry’s mother-in-law, the mother of Henry’s real wife, Kit.  Another gem of a scene unfolds when Woodward attempts to convince his mother-in-law that he’s purely in Portugal for some golf.  

The late arrival of boyhood friend Perky, played by Herman Smith, and Henry’s wife Kit, played by Karen Wilson, only adds to the mayhem.

The comedy chaos is also helped by the well-timed entrances of the characters as they narrowly miss each other and the frequent appearances of the self-declared non-drinking, but alcoholic character of ‘Chitto’.

Frank Joel’s has an outstanding record of directing highly successful comedies and Holiday Snap is no exception as the laughs just keep on coming.  

Ken Cotterill

Photographer: Paul Barton