Players staged a holy farce

As farces go See How They Run is among the funniest I have seen. With mistaken identities, misunderstandings and mayhem it captures exquisitely funny moments as characters dive through doors and in an out of cupboards. Just what farce is meant to be!

It tells the tale of Rev Lionel Toop (a lovely portrayal by Michael Taylor) and his ex-actress wife Penelope (a polished performance by Alison Griffiths-Barnes). The couple are visited by the village busy-body who wants to complain about the vicar’s wife having taken over her job of decorating the pulpit for the harvest festival service.

When Lance-Corporal Clive Winton (a funny Daniel Haresnape), an ex-acting colleague, arrives to see Penelope it is Miss Skillen who grabs the wrong end of the stick when she sees them re-enacting a scene from Private Lives...

Great character performances come from a string of other visitors – the Bishop (Alan Hackett), Rev Humphrey (David Quick) and escaped German prisoner (Mike Davison) all helped or hindered by Ida the maid (a delightful Lesley Southworth).

Towards the end of the play Sgt Towers (Howard Cox) arrives to discover the whereabouts of an escaped prisoner whom he believes may be masquerading as a vicar!

What should take a simple bit of detective work results in chaos. Soon there are five ‘vicars’ onstage but only three of them are real. Laugh-out-loud fun at its best!

By Jenny Robson