OPEN WIDE
The Grange Players
Grange Playhouse, Walsall
From The Birmingham Evening Mail
Eight candles are on the stage in readiness for a dentist’s romantic evening, but for health and safety reasons in the real world, they don’t work. They symbolise Gerald Walker’s play, which doesn’t work either.
Quite apart from unaccountable moments when the lights in the dentist’s flat appear to have a mind of their own, the play does not achieve its unspoken ambition to have an auditorium rocking with laughter.
It’s no fault of the players, who generally drive the action forward with commendable determination, but Roger the dentist is surrounded by too many stock characters. There are the daffy blonde in French maid mode, the thick and unsubtle friend, the righteously indignant girlfriend - the romantic evening wasn’t going to be with her - and the persistent policeman who is there to make us laugh because he is camp. It’s all been done before.
The only interesting characters in the mix are Roger, played with desperate panic by Graham Smith, and Adrian his druggie son (Joseph Hicklin).
The action also has a predictability based on lies, mistaken identities, doors to disappear behind and a window to climb out of.
Rating ***
John Slim
From The Walsall Observer
You won’t need a sniff of laughing gas to see the funny side of this Gerald Walker farce about a randy dentist planning a spot of homework with his shapely receptionist.
The cast line-up also includes the dentist’s drug-taking son, just back from Amsterdam with a few illegal prezzies for his pals, a long-suffering girlfriend and a gay policeman trying to clean up the neighbourhood.
Sounds like a recipe for loads of fun, and the play certainly has its moments, but at times it’s a little predictable. Nor does the set, representing the dentist’s ground floor flat, help the action in some respects.
It is too clinical in appearance, the lighting was far too bright for the scene of a planned seduction evening, and the half dozen or so candles on stage were unlit, apparently for health and safety considerations.
The cast performed well, with Graham Smith impressive as Roger, the frustrated dentist, and Christopher Waters excellent in the important role of Crispin the cop.
Sound contributions, too, from Stephanie Quance (Pamela, the girlfriend) and Zoe Roberts (Sarah, the leggy receptionist).
Directed by Peter Smith and produced by Rosemary Manjunath, Open Wide stays open till Saturday September 20.
Paul Marston
