Spoiler alert: if you’ve booked but haven’t yet been to see this play, you might like to skip this review until you have. There are still a few opportunities left to see it in Ipswich and Chipping Ongar – see their schedule here.
If you are a fan of the Father Brown TV series (which returns tomorrow) you will know it demands the suspension of disbelief needed to accept a Cotswold village has a predominantly Catholic population. And like pretty much every TV detective series, that village has a crime rate to rival a big city.
The TV series is re-located from the books by G K Chesterton, in both place and time: from Essex in the early 20th century to 1950s Gloucestershire. Common Ground Theatre Company have brought Father Brown back to East Anglia. Father Brown and the Curse of the Christmas Fairy is set in the fictional Suffolk village of Dangleford.
But the company don’t want you to suspend your disbelief – they would like you to park it at the top of their imaginatively-designed bell tower.
It’s not quite farce, and it’s not quite adult panto, but it’s hugely enjoyable. There were times the cast had to wait for the audience to stop laughing. The cast of four, all men, succeeded in portraying multiple characters, plus puppets and a giant badger. When not on stage, they were providing the musical accompaniment too.
The publicity promised: “As the mulled wine simmers, old grudges reach boiling point” but that did not prepare us for the high energy start to the performance. They kept it up throughout, with song and dance interspersed with the carrying forward of the story.
The story in the play fits very well into the classic mystery genre – blackmail most horrid rather than the more usual murder, which makes a nice change.
Father Brown (Matthew Rutherford) and sidekick Flambeau (Julian Harries) are faced with various distressed villagers threatened by a blackmailer who has somehow found out their dark secrets. Their pursuit of the culprit takes them to various locations around badger-infested Dangleford.
The show was nearly stolen by two puppet penguins, one of which had to be given CPR. Puppets were used too, in conjunction with the actors, to achieve the climbing of the bell tower. That was particularly effective.
Versatile production
I saw the production in Laxfield village hall, where they were performing for a single night. But their pop-up stage and set overcame these limitations to provide clever backdrops to the action. The location effects were achieved with minimal changes with the lighting (by Mark Sterling) drawing attention to various parts of the set.
At the interval, I asked some of the audience for their reactions. Tony likened it to The Goon Show on speed, saying it was: “very funny, stupid, just what you need at this time of year. Like a sunny day after all the grey. Great fun.”
Elaine said: “It’s very good, gives us a lift after all these grey days. You want something silly sometimes.” After curtain close (although there wasn’t an actual curtain), Lesley said: “Brilliant, not what I expected. Best one like that I’ve seen for ages.”
Father Brown and the Christmas Fairy is written by Patricia Whymark, who is also director and composer. The cast are Matthew Rutherford, Julian Harries, Douglas Clarke Wood, and Joseph Alyward. Lighting by Mark Sterling, set design by Julian Harries and Patricia Whymark, costumes Faby Pym, and accountant Jeremy Stewart.
It’s always worth keeping an eye open for local performances. Just because a play is being performed in a village hall does not mean it’s not fully professional. Common Ground Theatre’s actors have a solid background in bigger theatres and TV, with Julian Harries having appeared in series 11 of Father Brown. Eastern Angles is another company to look out for.
It seems to me it takes consummate directing and acting skills to devise a touring production that has to set up in both real theatres and make temporary transformations of village halls. Common Ground Theatre did a cracking job.
I would have liked to see more of the badger, though.
In other news, in a future issue of Something for the Weekend we’ll be taking a trip to SeaLife in Hunstanton and Great Yarmouth. They are offering local residents across East Anglia a 50% discount at their Norfolk locations. To see if your area qualifies, check their website.
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