House of fun let down by poor script

OUR HOUSE, George Lawton Hall, Mossley (to Saturday)
YET another impressive, high-energy production from the remarkable, and remarkably youthful Mossley AODS company.

But this time the result isn’t quite so entertaining as some of the company’s past successes.

This has little to do with the production; the show itself is suspect.

The “Madness musical” features all the hits and more of band Madness, but doesn’t always integrate them into the story very well. The result is more cartoon than between-classes romance.

Downtrodden
Tim Firth’s book is a mish-mash of Cockney wide-boys and a plot whose characters seem to be derived from Willy Russell’s “Blood Brothers” — downtrodden mother, ghostly narrator and in this case not twin boys, one good and one bad, but one man split into two characters, good and bad. Russell did it better.

The Mossley company hasn’t exactly bitten off more than it can chew, because in the past we have seen it can chew an awful lot. But this time the group struggles, both artistically and technically, to make the rather Byzantine plot clear.

Speaking of “clear”, on opening night, lighting problems meant anyone who came to the front of the stage was pretty much in the dark (though otherwise the lighting effects were very good); and the otherwise excellent offstage band was a little loud for the actors — leaving me for one struggling a little to hear every word clearly.

The performances, as usual, were a mix of the very good to the less good, but are always redeemed by John Wood’s fast-moving, colourful production, given full-speed movement by choreographer Jane Wood and strong backing by MD Simon Murray. Gary Jones-McCaw famously goes through 34 costume changes while switching between good and bad versions of his character, Joe, and is good as both, with strong singing and dancing.

Felicity Eccles as his girl friend Sarah sings sweetly but the character isn’t well written.

But the real pleasure of the production is in the set-piece song and dance numbers. High-energy backing joins even higher-energy dancing from the vast cast and in the likes of “Our House”, “Baggy Trousers” and “House of Fun”, among others, the show takes off and lights the stage all on its own.