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Anna-Maree Thomas, William Burns, and Finley Hughes in rehearsal for Flagons & Foxtrots, which opened at the Court Theatre on Saturday night.
If it’s unrestrained laughter you’re after, a visit to the Court Theatre during the five-week run of Flagons & Foxtrots, which kicked off on Saturday, really should be on your schedule.
That sounds like mission accomplished, given humour was the clear aim when Ross Gumbley, who started his acting career at the Court in 1985 and is now its artistic director, and Alison Quigan originally penned the show in Palmerston North. But the belly laughs will also have drowned out some fervent sighs of relief that the show has made it onto the stage, given the huge disruptions to live theatre wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This show fell victim too, with rehearsals that began in January put on hold when the detection of the country’s first Omicron case took all of New Zealand into the red traffic light setting late that month, a situation that lasted until mid-April.
Happily, preparations were revived, and a show that serves as an antidote – albeit briefly – to the many anxieties of our time, is finally on, including a hilarious and important element of audience interaction.
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The story revisits what was clearly a wild time on Saturday nights at the Ohoka Hall in 1964, or indeed any of hundreds of such halls across the country at the time when rock ‘n’ roll was becoming the dominant form of musical entertainment.
In the programme, artistic director Alison Walls accurately describes director Kathleen Burns’ cast as “a true ensemble”. The success of the show is in a tightly drilled cast working together, no individual upstaging the rest, with wonderful comic timing.
WARWICK SMITH/Stuff
Lily Bourne, soon to graduate from the National Academy of School and Dance in Christchurch, is impressive in her professional debut as Rita Vincent.
The comedy comes in multiple forms. It’s intensely physical at times, and one scene involving the Moore brothers, Archie (Finley Hughes) and Pinkie (William Burns), and their bandmate Jack Taylor (Ben Freeth) was unexpected, perfectly paced, and side-splitting. No spoilers, you have to see it. There’s linguistic hilarity too, found in several places in the capturing of Kiwi men’s typical indirectness on matters of delicacy. A discussion between Archie and Rita (Lily Bourne), sat in the boot of a gorgeous 1957 Morris Minor, is a highlight.
Bourne, making her professional stage debut, is impressive, and her vocals on You Don’t Own Me, one of several instantly recognisable classics in the show, are rich and appropriately soulful.
There are compelling performances throughout, from the experienced Anne-Maree Thomas, as Jill Jenkins, Adam Brookfield as her stern father Sid, Taylor, and the extremely funny Juliet Reynolds-Midgley, as Jill’s widowed Aunt Ina.
The most raucous moments came from the interplay between the brothers Moore, with both Hughes and Burns consistently energetic, bold and innovative in their performances. For Moore, just 23, that represents a remarkable feat, having barely come out of an intense nine-week period of chemotherapy when rehearsals resumed.
Happily, he’s cancer-free, and said afterwards he is devoting “most of my energy” to the show. His performance in the circumstances is testament to a passion for the craft that clearly runs deep.
Flagons and Foxtrots – a hilarious trip back to the swinging sixties & Latest News Update
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