Loot

On an excellent pink/purple rendition of the Catholic front room of a 1960’s London home, by David Marshall-Martin, amazing events occur. Mrs McLeavy (Alison Davies) has died. She lies in an open coffin and, because it’s the New Theatre and there’s no curtain opening to reveal the scene, for 15 minutes prior to the first words, and then for at least 40 minutes afterwards, she is shown lying in state, spot lit, centre stage. Brilliantly, she does not move a muscle.

And then she gets covered in stolen money, moved to new positions and crammed in a cupboard – all before being replaced by a rather unconvincing dummy. It’s the best performance of a dead body for some time.

Fittingly, it’s seen in this revival of Loot, the 1965 classic farce by gender-bending writer Joe Orton, whose comic take on events in 60s London broke all bounds. Nearly 60 years later, his trenchant, uproarious comments on love, death and crime are still spot on.

When Hal (Oliver MacFadyen) and Dennis (Andrew Waldin) rob thousands of pounds from their local bank, Hal discovers the perfect place for stashing the hoard is the burial coffin of his recently deceased mother. All they have to do is swap the body for the cash.

But everything conspires against them. The grieving father, McLeavy (Nicholas Papademetriou), is alert to just about everything, and the dead woman’s great-looking Irish nurse, Fay (Shannon Ryan), eight times married, is an expert on intimate foul play. And can that be Truscott of the Yard (Alexander Spinks), in the guise of a man from the Metropolitan Water Board, doing some close inspection of the situation?

The cast are fine, with standout performances from Shannon Ryan and Oliver MacFadyen. Alexander Spinks copes with a long list of troubles as he bends and tricks his way towards the truth. Andrew Waldin has some trouble holding back his laughter.

There was a problem on the opening night when loud laughter and comments from some members of the audience would often swamp dialogue. Probably better to play it cool.

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: © Bob Seary.