Dinner Theatre with "Pools Paradise"

POOLS PARADISE IS A MERRY MIXUP

“Every bell in my belfry is cracked,” complains the Rev. Mr. Lionel Toop early in Act One of “Pools Paradise”, and the stage is set for whacky doings in the vicarage. The same vicarage was the scene of Philip King’s 1945 hit play, “See How They Run”, also inhabited by the same couple - Lionel and Penelope, and occasionally dusted by the same excitable maid, Ida.  

The vicar makes his first entrance with all the dignity that he can summon up, while surrounded by levity and silliness. His wife, a former actress, cannot curb her gift for barbed repartee and her sense of the ridiculous. The maid keeps popping in and out, babbling excitedly about ships coming in. The vicar, exasperated by the frivolity around him, welcomes with temporary relief the arrival of a humourless pillar of the church - the inevitable local spinster. All too soon it is the vicar who will embody the ridiculous - but that is enough from me. Too many further hints of the action to come would spoil the suspense. I can give only a few pencil strokes.

Expect to hear a creative clutch of sound effects - telephones and alarm clocks being mistaken for each other by the characters, with comic  effect, and every degree of decibels from a genteel doorbell buzz to Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. Afficionados of the British vicarage farce will not be surprised to see people disappearing into closets, rushing madly in and out, chasing and evading each other and appearing in all kinds of disguises, in a complicated plot that you really don’t need to fathom very deeply.

Not to worry. In Act Three, Mrs. Toop’s uncle, the Bishop of Lax,  appears when everything has gone totally out of control. It is time for this august and kindly figure to save the day, like the British cavalry or the American Marines. He has to go through some amazing new experiences for a bishop before the rescue is complete.

The audience is just along for the comedic ride, having fun, as the actors of the Dragonfly Theatre Company do, under the direction of Pru Davidson.

The show opened on Tuesday 27 July in the Trillium Court of the Gravenhurst Opera House, continues for two more evenings this week, and returns August 3-5 and 10-14. Doors open at 5.30 pm and a mouth-watering dinner is served from 6 pm. Either the beef or the salmon by Riverwalk have been highly recommended by more than satisfied audience members. The show follows the meal.

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on the Gravenhurst Opera House Site:

http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/