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Stop Messing About
In what has turned out to be an oddly busy week for me culturally, Daniel and I last night popped along to the West End Theatre to see “Stop Messing About“, the sequel show to the popular “Round the Horne… Revisited” I saw a couple of years back.
And much fun it was too. More or less in the same vein as its predecessor, you were effectively transported back to the BBC Radio theatre for two acts, each of which gave you the feel of being at a recording of the actual Stop Messing About radio show. I gather there was a little new material, but most of it was authentic sketches taken from the first series and despite a relatively small audience, it seemed to be appreciated by all concerned.
The only problem is that, much like the radio show itself, the stage presentation suffered on two counts. First it wasn’t by Barry Cryer and Marty Feldman who wrote the first three series of Round the Horne, it was by Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer who wrote the fourth. Received wisdom suggests that somehow they weren’t quite as good at Horne as the first team and for a change it’s recieved wisdom I do agree with. Not bad, certainly, but not as good.
Secondly was that Kenneth Horne wasn’t it it – but again this was what prevented Stop Messing About from working so well as its parent show. Indeed much of SMA was apparently supposed to have been the fifth series of Horne, but Kenneth’s death rather prevented that happening and his duties were therefore – rather obviously – split between the announcer Douglas Smith and Kenneth Williams. And neither of them quite managed to be the avuncular solid authority figure around whom the other cast could spin wildly out of control. Both were excellent performers for their parts, of course, but their parts by necessity couldn’t anchor the show in the same way and SMA was therefore ultimately cancelled.
So in some respects the stage show’s strength and weakness was in its accuracy. But nonetheless the second half seemed more confident and acerbic and the audience and cast had warmed up nicely and I would heartily recommend seeing it if you can. Robin Sebastian puts in another scarily accurate turn as Kenneth Williams, and Nigel Harrison and Charles Armstrong similarly put in highly commendable comic turns as Hugh Paddick and Douglas Smith.
My surprise of the night though was Emma Atkins as Joan Sims. Personally I’m not convinced she was as much of a fit for the part of Sims as the others were for their roles (visually or vocally) but by God she showed an amazing range and extremely deft comic timing which showcased her perfectly. I was, therefore, incredibly surprised in my (admittedly) snobbish anti-soap way to find that she’s best known as Charity Dingle from Emmerdale.
All in all, it’s about time that more of these types of shows were put on. There’s something charming and immediate about them unlike radio recordings of today and, at its best, the material just shines.
Posted on May 14, 2009 | Filed Under Film, TV, Theatre
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