Chase Me Comrade - performed February 2005

By Ray Cooney

Performed with the kind permission of Josef Weinberger ltd.

Director - Nigel Rowe

It has been a pleasure to work with this cast on this play and I hope that you, the audience, enjoy watching it as much as we did making it. It is a farce which gets more and more frantic as time passes and there are points where if you are not concentrating you will miss who is doing what and with whom.

Cast

(in order of appearance)

Nancy Rimmington Amanda Rowe

Commander Rimmington Lester Pearse

Hoskins Mike Johansen

Alicia Courtney Caroline Newson

Petrovyan John Roberts

Gerry Buss Clive Platt

Mr Laver Gordon Prior

Constable Pulford Nigel Rowe

Janet Rimmington Yvonne Colbold

Bobby Hargreaves Chris Bush

The Play

A farce by Ray Cooney. This was first performed at The Theatre Royal, Windsor, on 30th March 1964 and Ray Cooney played Gerry Buss. It was later starred in by the undoubted Master of Farce, Mr Brian Rix at the Whitehall Theatre, London on 15th July 1964 where Brian Rix played Gerry Buss.

The play is set in the 1970s' and starts on a Saturday afternoon in the summer

Reviews

Right tonic for cold spell

It was just the tonic everyone needed - something to take their minds off the cold outside.
No-one could fail to be cheered after watching the antics of the ten-strong cast taking part in the Manifest Theatre Groups latest production.
Chase Me Comrade! A farce by Ray Cooney, took time to get going and Clive Platt, in the unenviable position of taking on a role once played by Brian Rix, the master of such plays, fluffed a few lines at the start but gradually grew into the part and by the end appeared to be enjoying the romp as much as everyone else.

Like all good farces, there was confusion and more confusion, innuendo, mix ups and misunderstandings, all culminating in the chase, a feat in itself, taking into account the limited space the Oxford Road theatre and a credit to director Nigel Rowe.

As ever at the Manifest, all the cast performed well. One of the most difficult roles was probably that of John Roberts, the Russian ballet dancer with limited English, but he too, with much arm waving and facial expressions was able to add to the general chaos. Then there was Gordon Prior, who after many years as a teacher, is carving out a new career as an actor, often comical, no doubt to the incredulity of his former pupils! After two hours, it was out into the snow, but nobody seemed to mind.
Lesley Pallett