REVIEW: The Ladykillers, New Wolsey Theatre ✭✭✭

It’s a risk to stage a production of a much loved film, and, overall, the Wolsey manages to pull it off, although the production doesn’t quite reach the comedic highs it could have.

Paul T Davies

Paul is a playwright, director, actor, academic, (he has a PhD from the University of East Anglia), teacher and theatre reviewer! His plays include Living with Luke, (UK tour 2016), Play Something, (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Drayton Arms Theatre, London 2018), , (2019), and now The Miner’s Crow, which won the inaugural Artist’s Pick of the Fringe Award at the first ever Colchester Fringe Festival 2021. In lockdown 2020 he created the audio series Isolation Alan, available on Youtube, and performed online in the Voice Box Festival. He is the founder member of Stage Write, a Colchester based theatre company, and his acting roles include Rupert in How We Love by Annette Brook, first performed at the Vaults Festival 2020 and revived at the Arcola and at Theatre Peckham in 2021. Follow: @stagewrite_

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Ann PenfoldAnthony DunneevFoxtonGraham Lineham

The cast of The Ladykillers The Ladykillers.

New Wolsey Theatre.

13 September 2017

3 Stars

Kicking off their autumn season, the Wolsey, in a co-production with Salisbury Playhouse and Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch, stage Graham Lineham’s adaptation of the classic Ealing comedy, in which a bungling gang of robbers are thwarted by the interference of landlady Mrs. Wilberforce. It’s a risk to stage a production of a much loved film, and, overall, the Wolsey manages to pull it off, although the production doesn’t quite reach the comedic highs it could have.

The cast of The Ladykillers

First plaudits must go to the wonderful and ingenious set by Foxton, that takes us inside and out of Mrs. Wilberforce’s crumbling, bomb damaged premises next to Kings Cross station, taking us and the characters from every level, basement to rooftop, and cleverly incorporating the signals and smoke of a busy train station. It’s a brilliant playground for the cast to play on.

Steven Elliot as Professor Marcus and Ann Penfold as Mrs Wilberforce.

Second plaudits go to director Peter Rowe’s casting. This is a fine ensemble, with some perfectly rounded characters providing many laughs. Ann Penfold is excellent as Mrs. Wilberforce, finding a perfect match with Steven Elliot’s Professor Marcus, much of their comic timing well executed. Damian Williams steals the show as the thick but loveable One Round, Graham Seed perfectly captures Major Courtney’s desire to cross dress, Sam Lupton is a highly energetic pill popping Harry, and Anthony Dunn is wonderfully sinister and threatening as Louis Harvey.

Sam Lupton, Damian Williams, Anthony Dunn, Steven Elliot and Graham Seed in The Ladykillers.

Yet the second half doesn’t fulfil the promise that the first half sets up. The bumping off, one by one, of the gang becomes a little tedious, and jokes, such as Harry banging his head, begin to run for far too long. (Mrs. Wilberforce stepping on Marcus’s scarf becomes annoying, especially as his death is changed from the West End staging, in which the scarf played an even more profound role.) After the hilarious concert that opens act two, the action begins to plod, and, as this is a highly technical and complex show, there are pauses as the set revolves and the next set piece is arranged. Perhaps it needs a few more shows to run in, but overall, entertaining as much of the evening is, it doesn’t yet deliver a killer comedy blow.