Southwold Summer Theatre Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 10 September 2012 The Southwold season of drama ends with a little gem from the pen of Peter Shaffer, who gave us Equus, Amadeus and Black Comedy. Five finger exercises are piano training techniques in dexterity, strength and coordination. A piano is the background motif as a dysfunctional family face growing up, ghosts from the past and personality struggles. Iain Ridley plays the troubled young man, at university but still bound by home and loyalty ties, on the threshold of real adulthood. Ann Wenn is his mother, calm and proper on the outside, but a turmoil of frustrated emotions inside. Michael Shaw is his self-made father, uncultured and vulgar, yet holding his family with a powerful grip. Holly Jones is the teenage sister, just discovering … Read entire article »

Southwold Summer Theatre Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 8 August 2012 The time for a good barmy sex shenanigans romp has arrived at the Southwold Summer Theatre season. This piece by Richard Harris and Leslie Darbon takes on the hilarious if predictable confusions and comic madnesses of the farce genre and mixes them with liberal doses of homespun psychology – ‘psychiatrists have their problems too.’ It’s all a form of commentary on our oldest institution – ‘marriage is like a bath, the longer you lie in it, the colder it gets!’ Michael Shaw plays the flustered middle-aged man suffering loss of libido, Rosanna Miles his would-be lover looking for a father-replacement figure and Ann Wenn his wife who decides that two can play silly games. Iain Ridley is the clever-dick pseudo psychiatrist who bites … Read entire article »

Southwold Summer Theatre Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 26 July 2012   Every summer season needs at least one good murder. This is it. A clever plot, told well and set in the obligatory ramshackle country house with dark nights outside and creakings upstairs concerns a watertight plan to do away with a thoroughly unpleasant man. The play uses the devices of whodunnit writers to pose a hypothetical solution to a problem. However, the perfect murder is a rare thing, and the curse of the unexpected thwarts the perpetrators. At the heart of it are two brothers, the Cain and Abel story in a sense. The older one is to inherit the estate and title, the younger one has nothing except a writer’s imagination. Mark Jackson and Jonny McPherson play them with panache, both … Read entire article »

Southwold Summer Theatre Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 13 July 2012 The summer theatre season in Southwold got off to a splendid, inspired and madcap start with Dave Freeman’s 1970s version of the farce genre. This does exactly what it says on the tin – comic characters in ludicrous situations employing quick thinking that makes matters worse via some very funny lines. Oh yes, and enough trouser dropping to keep everybody laughing. Anthony Falkingham directs, making the most of the space and entrances and achieving that sometimes elusive balance between the predictable and the new angle on old themes. Terry Malloy, famed in The Archers and as Dr Who’s arch-enemy Davros, takes the lead. Strong performances from Clive Flint, Iain Ridley, Sarah Ogley, Penelope Rawlins, Michael Shaw and Rosanna Miles ensure they all tumble … Read entire article »