![](https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Speeches-press-2-495x400-1.webp)
Show: The Play With Speeches
Society: London (professional shows)
Venue: Jack Studio Theatre. 410 Brockley Road, London SE4 2DH
Credits: by James Woolf, directed by Ursula Campbell and Katherine Reilly, produced by Olive and Stavros.
Type: Sardines
Author: Susan Elkin
Performance Date: 16/02/2023
The Play With Speeches
Susan Elkin | 17 Feb 2023 12:58pm
Given the amount of heavy serious stuff there is about at the moment, it’s a refreshing pleasure to see something which is just funny. And the real joy of James Woolf’s clever play is that it pokes fun at theatre itself.
Anthony (Matthew Parker) has written – or rather – compiled a play, for which actors are now auditioning. His ex-partner Penny (Katherine Reilly who also co-directs with Ursula Campbell) is to direct the play. The plot line of Anthony’s play consists of audition speeches and actors auditioning for roles forms the narrative arc of Woolf’s play. As we hear the auditions we deduce the plot of the play being cast. “Complicated isn’t it?” as Parker’s character cheerfully observes to the audience. Yes, it’s a play within a play within a play – a sort of ingenious theatrical onion.
Parker, effectively the star of this show, is a multi-talented man. I also know him as director ( an Offie for Thrill Me, earlier this week) for producer, publicist and for several years artistic director of The Hope Theatre. Here, as an actor, he often communicates with a well timed look connoting chagrin, disbelief or cunning manipulation. His character is camp, unreasonable, infuriating, talks far too much – and is utterly hilarious. It’s an outstanding performance.
Katherine Reilly spars off him nicely with eye-rolling commonsense and a longsuffering concern to get on with casting the play she’s been brought in to direct. Inevitably they snarl at each other a lot as we gradually get the back story of their brief relationship – two contrasting versions of it, of course.
Actually this play has a cast of nine and I can’t help wondering how it works economically because some of these actors have very little to do in a play which runs 1 hour 50 minutes including interval. Nonetheless the cameos from Mayuresh Mishra and Anna Blackburn both playing auditionees are intelligent and funny. And Jumaane Brown convinces as Nick the assistant who sees the auditionees in and then surprises everyone by also auditioning himself.
Camilia O’Grady steals the show for a while in her main scene as an auditionee having a hilariously excessive panic attack and then auditioning well and Ursula Campbell’s calm Michaela is a sensible contrast. Mark Parsons as Felix irritates the panel by auditioning twice and then trying to wheedle a third opportunity – and that’s entertaining too.
Finally comes Lionel (Michael Perlmutter – good ), confident, competent, a bit pleased with himself and just what the play needs. So of course there’s a show down with Parker who happily ramps the comedy up to the rafters.
This fresh, original show is exactly what you need on a damp, drizzly February night in south London for light relief and lots of laughter when you’ve recently had a lot of intense musicals, intellectual plays and the 35th adaptation of the same classic novel.