On Saturday my parents and I forfeited Doctor Who (BLASPHEMY!!) to watch a local theatre performance by the Chameleon Theatre Company in Chandler’s Ford of Eastleigh.
It was a performance of The Ladykillers and, as a favour for my mum (not that I’d usually do favours for her), I’ll review it.
The story revolves around five bank robbers consisting of ‘Professor’ Marcus, ‘Major’ Courtney, the comedic Mr Robinson, the dumb ex-boxer One-Round (aka Mr Lawson) and the gangster Louis.
They go undercover to construct a plan to rob a security van, and set up base by living with Mrs Wilberforce, an old lady who the ‘Professor’ has tricked into thinking that they are innocent musicians who need complete concentration to work.
The robbers all hate each other
The funniest part about all this is the fact that the five main robbers are all completely different and it’s obvious that many of them hate each other.
Marcus, as the team leader, struggles the most to keep the team under control and to stop one of the others from revealing their true intentions. This leads to many hilarious moments including a scene where Marcus has to mime actions to Harry Robinson, only for Harry to mess it up completely.
The scene in question has Harry trying to tell Mrs Wilberforce that he has a sick mum, and that she is blind and mad, not understanding Marcus. Marcus, understandably annoyed, places his face in his hands and Harry misinterprets this as Marcus trying to mime the fact that Harry’s mum constantly washes her face.
Harry himself is the joker of the pack, suffering from OCD, which creates a brilliant running gag of him frequently cleaning up the house.
This is a complete contrast to Louis, an ultra serious criminal who is taking the whole situation too seriously and believes that Mrs Wilberforce will ruin the plan and that Marcus hasn’t planned it out (turns out he’s right). Despite this, Louis is absolutely terrified of old ladies, and with plenty of them in the story, it makes his life pretty miserable.
The ‘General’ is the bumbling war veteran who is the first one to die. He tries to get away with the money by himself when the plan goes wrong and ends up on a train track. Well, in fact they all do, except for Mrs Wilberforce, who gets all the money in the end.
My favourite ‘dumb’ character
And that leaves One Round, easily my favourite character.
The reason he’s my favourite is because I always like the dumb characters in these sort of things. His lack of understanding of the situation, his repetition of “Am I Mr Lawson?” and his protection of Mrs Wilberforce is just great, and he’s the only character in the whole play who actually changes as the story goes on.
Mrs Wilberforce herself is hilarious, as she has no knowledge of the situation until One Round accidentally reveals that they have just robbed the bank. Oh yeah, and she has a diseased parrot called General Gordon.
Top 5 funny moments
There are lots of funny moments, so here are my top 5:
5. The aforementioned washing the face scene.
4. When they come back from the robbery and Louis is worried that one of them will betray the others. Suddenly Marcus came out of the toilet.
3. The discussion about which Friday the ‘musicians’ are meant to play.
2. Everything One Round says.
1. When they all hide in the cupboard when the policeman comes into the house, only for Mrs Wilberforce to open the door and they all stare at her, grinning.
Overall, this is a great play. If you missed it then it’s a shame but there are performances every few months at the Richie Memorial Hall in Chandler’s Ford.
Finally, did you know that in the original production of the play, Marcus was played by the 12th Doctor Peter Capaldi – the Doctor being a robber, where have I seen it before?
Cast – The Ladykillers, by Chameleon Theatre Company, October 2014
- Director: Liz Strevens
- Constable Macdonald: Tom Pinnock
- Mrs. Tromleyton: Diana Mills
- Mrs. Wilberforce: Marilyn Dunbar
- General Gordon: Dave Wilkins
- Professor Marcus: Matthew Meehan
- Major Courtney: Geoff Dodsworth
- Harry Robinson: Dave Wilkins
- Desmond Lawson aka One Round: Nick Coleman
- Louis Harvey: James Hook
- Elderly Ladies: Sian Hayden, Sarah Phipps
(Note: Image credit: All images are by Keith Taylor, a member of Winchester Photographic Society.)
Note: This post is also published in the blog – Ben Williams’ World: The Ladykillers theatre review.
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A bank robbery in Chandler’s Ford? That sounds familiar.
It was such a great show – brilliant cast with distinctive personalities. Matthew Meehan (Professor Marcus) had a great stage presence, powerful voice, and controlling eyes. He played the manipulative role so well – indeed a very dangerous man.
I’ve just realised Dave Wilkins also plays the voice for General Gordon. (Doesn’t Dave love playing multiple roles in a play?) I wonder what happened to General Gordon afterwards? I expected ‘it’ to play a part in second half, such as exposing some secrets, but it didn’t happen. Dave is talented and a versatile actor. His tics and OCD behaviour were very convincing. This is Dave’s another success since the comedy Spring Happenings with his wife Gillian.
I also wonder why Professor Marcus’ scarf is so long? He might trip over it.
A brilliant performance and entertaining evening. Congratulations to the director Liz Strevens. Thanks to the Chameleons! The production, stage, lighting and sound were outstanding …… Well done!
I went to the show with my wife and a couple of friends and we all enjoyed the evening hugely. The Chameleon Theatre players are a real talented bunch. My favourite character was Major Courtney played by Geoff Dodsworth – his facial expressions were a joy to behold. I thought that Marilyn Dunbar who played Mrs Wilberforce was tremendous in her acting ability and facility with the number of lines she had to remember. Similarly Matthew Meehan as Professor Marcus. All told the actors did a very professional job.
Looking forward to the next production.
Brilliant review above by young Ben Williams.
One Round was my favourite character too, with the Major a close second. What a great evening’s entertainment from the multi-talented Chameleons!
One Round reminds me of Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. The men are both physically strong but mentally ‘challenged’ – I first thought One Round was portrayed as being ‘autistic’, as he took words literally and could only understand a small chunk of information at a time. But my husband reminded me that One Round suffered from brain damage due to boxing.
The five men were very disturbed, but deep down, some of them were kind. One feels inclined to give Harry a lot of TLC. Louis was rather creepy, but the Professor was the most sinister. His voice and mannerism (especially as the conductor) really commanded the stage.
Who could explain to me the accents employed by Harry Robinson and Louis?
Sian Hayden asked me not to ‘blink’ for her appearance. The appearances by Mrs. Tromleyton and the elderly ladies were brief but memorable with lots of fine interactions.
The 4 ladies that attended Wednesday’s performance, from the Nightingale Estate, agreed with me that we hadn’t such a good laugh for a long time. The whole show was magnificent and we would like to thank all of you for the free admission tickets.
With much appreciation.
Sincerely,
Sheila
Dear Sheila,
I’m glad to hear that you and your friends all enjoyed the show. I went with my teenage son, (who wrote this post), and my husband, and we all had a good laugh and haven’t stopped discussing the comedy since.
It is such a wonderful scheme that The Chameleons are offering these popular, free performances to residents from local care homes. One Community, which organises free transport, does a great job. Credit to Cllr Chris Greenwood for providing the Community Support Fund.
I hope you’ll enjoy the pantomine in January too.
The Ladykillers was originally a film (one of the Ealing comedies) made in 1955 and starring Alec Guiness. Even though it is in black and white, I thoroughly recommend it if you want to see comic acting of the highest quality. There was an American version in 2004 starring Tom Hanks – don’t bother with this.