Harbour Theatre's The Vicar of Dibley - Theatre Review

Post

Subscribe

Fri 30 Aug 2024 - Sun 08 Sep 2024

Disclaimer: I directed a production of The Vicar of Dibley back in 2021. Different company and different cast, but the exact same script is being used for this production. I also attended with a few members of my cast. Whilst every effort was made to remain impartial, comparisons to our own production were unavoidable

The Vicar of Dibley was originally a popular British comedy series which aired in the 1990's and starred Dawn French in the titular role. The premise of the show was how a female vicar is sent to the little village of Dibley to replace the recently deceased predecessor. Whilst first unhappy with the new appointee, the villagers eventually accept Geraldine into their lives and consider her a friend and a valued part of their community.

Harbour Theatre's performance of The Vicar of Dibley was staged at Memorial Hall in Hamilton Hill and directed by Jarrod Buttery. This particular script, which was written by two of the original show writers - Ian Gower and Paul Carpenter - specifically for the stage, starts with the arrival of Geraldine Granger (Meredith Hunter) in Dibley and ends with the wedding of Hugo (Peter Clarke) and Alice (Morgan Halket). Anyone in the audience who has seen the TV show will find much of what is happening on stage familiar to you, with one noticeable difference - Mrs Cropley (Kerry Goode) survives past Easter.



The show is mostly set between the lounge area of the vicarage and the parish hall. Harbour 2019s set, which was coordinated by Brian Mahoney, Phil Redding, Matt Cuccovia and Jarrod Buttery was, to me and at least one of my group, seriously lacking. I am saying this as a general theatre goer.

Staging the whole production in front of the red stage curtain, to me, pulled away from the show, restricting movement and making the performance area very narrow. It would have been nicer to see at least part of the full stage used to open up the whole performance. I also found the spacing in 2018the lounge 2019 too wide and two distinctively different areas were too close together, causing lighting bleed and actors to cross between the areas.

The way the stage was set, also made scene changes too long, as everyone only had only one entrance/exit on each side, and as there were a large number of scenes in each half, this brought the speed and flow of the whole show down.

As previously mentioned, I directed this show a few years ago, so I 2019m very familiar with the script. The high number of scenes are meant to represent the large passage of time. Saying that there was a very low number of costume changes to represent that passage. Some productions can get away without costume changes, but when some cast are changing whole or partial costumes and others aren 2019t, it creates a mismatch that 2019s distracting, something that should have been picked up by the costuming team and cast, saying that the costumes they did use were on point. The three children included in the cast (Delilah Pearson-Grocott, Eva Doherty and Charli George) looked very cute dressed as Teletubbies as part of Alice 2019s bridal party, but they did distract slightly from the performance.



An important part of performing ANY comedy is timing! Unfortunately, some of the cast missed that mark. Looking through their past performances noted in the program, many don 2019t appear to have comedy experience, which may be why their timing was off, and why some lines were missed because they talked over audience laughter. I also noted some changes to the script, which I can only guess was to try and up the comedy level, but to me they were mostly unnecessary, missed some marks and in one instance I hated because it was WAY wrong for a particular character.

With regards to the cast themselves, there were good points and bad. Frank (Tom Rees) was a positive having good comedic timing throughout. Morgan Halket 2019s characterisation of Alice had its high points, but her accent wasn 2019t right for the area of England the show is based. My biggest bug-bear of the show was with David (Dean McAskill), whose accent wavered as the show progressed, didn 2019t portray the full David pompous needed for the role, but also had a full beard! Now, while I fully understand that this stage show is an interpretation of the TV series, there are some things that you expect to see/not see of the characters on stage.

Overall for myself and some members of my group, this show fell flat off the mark. There were definitely some funny moments, but not as many as I expected and hoped for. The characters weren 2019t quite there from my perspective, the staging was off-putting and the whole show just didn 2019t seem polished.

Photos were taken from Facebook, no photo credits noted.

#arts_culture
#family_friendly
#theatre_shows
#community
#community_theatre
#not_for_profit
#south_perth
#hamilton_hill
#spearwood
#cockburn
#success
#beaconsfield
#hilton
#bibra_lake
#east_perth
#drama
#near_fremantle
#near_perth
#theatre
#theatre_reviews
#things_to_see
#september
#august
%wnperth