The Birmingham Evening Mail
Bus Stop
The Grange Players
Grange Playhouse, Walsall
This William Inge comedy is just the ticket! A real hoot of a tale from the moment a west-bound bus driver and his four passengers turn up in Grace’s small roadside restaurant near Kansas City when severe weather closes the highway.
It’s an ideal story for the stage, with cocky cowboy Bo Decker trying to kidnap and marry nightclub singer Cherie, driver Carl nipping upstairs with the eager diner owner Grace Hoylalnd, and middle-aged drop-out college professor Dr Gerald Lyman using his way with words to chat up the young waitress Elma Duckworth.
Dexter Whitehead gives a storming performance as the brash Bo, and Kate Rock is a superb Cherie, at first trying to escape the clutches of the rodeo hero then deciding to rope him in when she sees his better side. Her leggy, table-top rendition of That Old Black Magic has the audience in stitches.
Paul Viles sparkles as the tipsy tutor, particularly in the Romeo and Juliet scene with the naïve Elma (Karen Cockitt), and there’s some pleasant guitar strumming from Bo’s sidekick, Virgil Blessing (Adrian Venables). Robert Onions (Sheriff Will Masters), Gill Starling (Grace) and Gerald Joyce (Carl) complete a fine cast.
Full marks to the set builders (you could smell the bacon cooking) whose work enhanced the play, directed by Lynne Young. Bus Stop reaches its terminus on Saturday March 17. Climb aboard.
VERDICT: * * * *
PAUL MARSTON
