Love’s a Luxury

Published Thursday 26 June 2008 at 17:05 by Sheila Tracy

The opening sequence of this farce is sheer delight with Elizabeth Elvin as a housemaid, dancing to the music of Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries while carrying a bowl of the said fruit, generating a huge round of applause.

Enter Eric Carte, well cast as a successful theatre producer, arriving at the holiday cottage accompanied by Royce Mills as one of his stars, expecting to be greeted by housekeeper Mrs Harris who has unexpectedly been called away, leaving the guests in the care of pert and pretty daughter Molly.

Mills, a master of farce, whose reactions bring as many laughs as the dialogue, has plenty of scope here as he eyes the unexpected holiday attraction. The producer, also with an eye for a pretty girl, has fled from his jealous wife only to be followed by a delicious starlet played by Jennifer Biddall. Arrival of said wife, the ever glamorous, with a figure to die for, Belinda Carroll, means Molly has to be hidden and mother Harris has to take her place so Mills dons a frock for the role. The arrival of Joseph Pitcher as the producer’s son solves the problem of the starlet who is passed off as his new wife.

Some marvellous characterisation by Jeffrey Perry as Mr Mole, the scout master camping nearby and Patricia Kane, always good for a laugh, makes her entrance as the real Mrs Harris, before the curtain falls on an hilarious evening enjoyed by a packed house.