The Cast: Graham MacFarlane as Stephen, Darrin Cooper as The TV Repairman, Cheryl Sheppard, Maeve Elliott as Fiona, Mar, Joe Watson as The Game Show Host, Russ Wendes as Orlando, Simon Clark as Crispin and Mr. Jeremiah, Kirsty Crabbe, Sean Cooling, Nick Christian as Chiz
Ferret mayhem struck once more on Friday night at the Anthony Minghella Theatre. The Ferrets afield with cunning, sharp wit, banana skin slapstick and dark theatre of high order.
Isle of Wight Rock sought out it's baromoter of taste on these occasions. We found him, as ever, our resident socialite, right arm angled to hold a beer glass ready to give his verdict. "You know MacFarlane's mad but you are still not prepared for what happens, brilliant." Then Mark Wozencroft disappeared back into the theatre for the second half.
I also caught a group of guys in bedazed wonderment thanking a friend for recommending the play The Revenge of the Goggle Box. They had not been expecting the extent of the FTC's grip on the ribs. The guys were clearly not regulars to the Quay Arts Centre either. For the Ferret's got a result on two counts. They brought new punters into the theatre and they sent everyone home with well chuffed with their night out.
At the Ferret epicentre is playwright Graham MacFarlane whose energy bounds from writing, directing, performing and generally firing it along. This is, however, by no means a one man show. This is a dedicated collection of performers who make MacFarlane's clock tick.
The action centres on a house shared by four very different characters. Resident anorak, the brilliantly babbling Stephen, 'Jack The Lad' Crispin, leather trousered vixen Fiona and the 'out to lunch' Orlando. The play builds upon the original Goggle Box play concerning how lives are manipulated and become controlled by television.
Lives divorced from reality that become entangled in the characters on the TV and the TV Repairman comes to the rescue or does he? At the core of the play are four scenes in which the TV Repairman, brilliantly conveyed by Darrin Cooper, mirrors each of his troubled souls. So he arrives dressed in suitable attire to talk anorak with Stephen. Becomes pint down the pub laddish with Crispin, a character excellently played by Simon Clark making his stage debut. The TV repairman plays upon the audience's fantasies with Fiona and tunes marvellously into Orlando's wavelength. Wit, repartee and a touch of darkness slapped about like a wet bucket of fish.
Supporting the central cast was an equally talented collective of madcaps who enacted the television sequences from behind a massive TV screen that occupied the back of the set. So we had send up TV game show hosts, dotty contestants and piles of Chaplanesque gags by way of flying fruit. Special mention for Sean Cooling whose entrance to announce half time in an open dressing gown and underpants closed the first half admirably.
There were the occasional fluffs, of which Chiz in the soundbox, heard channelling through the CD for the right number was classic because it just seemed to be all part of the show. The end kind of petered out before I was expecting it. These are but minor observations compared to the sheer weight of belly laughs, enjoyment and dark takes on a nation's fixation with television.
Graham MacFarlane and the Ferret Theatre Company take a bow. We need you far more than we do another superstore on the Isle of Wight.
Mike Plumbley