What a fantastic production by Detling Players again. The cabaret seating with so many of the audience in costume created such a great atmosphere. The introduction of a cheese platter in the interval went down really well with all of our audience and again made it all so friendly.
The cast again was impeccable and so authentic. German and French accents were so well expressed.
With such a large cast there are too many to mention. The waitresses Mimi and Yvette played by Samantha Tunstill-Baldock, and newcomer Zoe Verhaeren-Roper were central to most of the plot and tottering around on their high heels brought movement, suggestiveness, and hilarity to the action.
René, played by Steve Page, was so well cast. Steve’s perfect timing and wonderful facial expressions had the audience in splits. His wife’s out of tune cabaret was so cleverly executed by Lesley Phippen the audience were cringing. Beatrice Gareze, a Players regular, was her usual incredibly funny self as Michelle from the Resistance. Her crazy disguises and obsessive behaviour added its usual colour to the production. Colin Leggat’s portrayal of Herr Flick playing the violin and doing the tango were immaculate and Sue Sutton as his ‘bit’ Helga was a great complement to his character. Oscar Gareze’s portrayal of Captain Bertorelli was so amusing with his bounciness and funny Italian accent.
And what can I say about three more of our newcomers who have never acted before. Alan Carver was phenomenal as Colonel Von Strom. You would have thought he’d trained at RADA. He had a perfect German accent and perfect timing. His use of his awful ‘wiglet’ was hilarious. Simon Johnson’s stiff portrayal of Officer Crabtree was just as it should be. His totally unintelligible script must have been so hard to learn, and he did it faultlessly. Laura Corbett who played Lady General Von Schmelling was impressive as this loud and obnoxious character.
Derek Lawrence, as usual, was our very clever and artistic designer. The stage and set were superb and totally believable.
Finally, particular congratulations to Clare Pearce the first time director who with her great organisation, there certainly had to be plenty of that, and her attitude of keeping everything flowing enabled her to get the best out of all her cast and have total support from the start.