AMATEUR THEATRE REVIEW: The Ladykillers - The Little Theatre, Bolton.

Bolton Little Theatre played host this evening to an array of seedy characters masquerading as musicians. This is the delightful Ealing comedy classic, The Ladykillers, brought to the theatre by William Rose and Graham Linehan. Those of a certain age... and I include myself in this... will never forget Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom, et al... boarding at Mrs. Lopsided's house whilst they concoct a daring robbery, which, in true comedy style goes both hilariously and tragically wrong.
Bolton Little Theatre's production tried hard to both bring these well-known and loved characters to life themselves, whilst also putting their own spin on them and the story too.

The stage was cleverly and ingeniously thought through. The living room and hall of the house being on the same level as the upstairs bedroom, via a split set and a set of stairs leading off into the wings. This worked well mostly, but there were times when I did not know how a character got from one to the other, since we never saw them traverse the forestage or the steps, which seemed odd. The biggest surprise was with a sliding panel to reveal the scenes which take place on the roof. The weakest part of all of this though was the train. So integral to the story and the 'feel' of the play, and the sound effect for the train did not replicate that of a period steam train sadly, and neither did we have any smoke either passing by the window, or even entering it.

Peter Scofield took on the pivotal role of Professor Marcus, and he had one thing in his favour straight away... he looked like Alastair Sim! This was in itself a gift... the role was originally written for Sim to play, and indeed Alec Guinness admitted himself later in life that he was impersonating Sim when he played Marcus on screen! Scofield therefore only had to sound like either of those two greats and this was a win/win... and lo and behold... he did!!

Aiding and abetting him in his nefarious undertakings were Gary Carroll as Major Courtney, underplaying his role nicely; Andrew Cropper as Harry, Steve Harrison as Mr. Lawson, and Chris Sherburn as a high-pitched and foreign Louis. All had their characters secure, wisely not being direct copies of their more famous film counterparts.

Margaret Marks looked remarkably like Katie Johnson, the originator of the role of landlady Mrs. Wilberforce. Perhaps though, for this reviewer at least, she tried too hard to replicate Johnson's performance and not bring enough of her own to the character.

Directed by Frances Clemmitt, the play started off rather slowly this evening, and it took a long time to find its stride. Perhaps this was because it was opening night, but generally the pace needed to be swifter with actors picking up their cues and reacting to each other much snappier than they did this evening. The physical comedy was not really hitting its mark squarely this evening sadly, and the visual knife gag was simply out of place here.

Otherwise however, this is a solid and sturdy performance of a classic film, faithfully recreated without copying, and a jolly entertaining evening out.

Thank you.
Reviewer - Chris Benchley

on - 26.6.23