Funny - but comedy pair pay lip service to stagecraft

THE PICTURE OF DOREEN GRAY, Oldham Coliseum

MANCHESTER duo Lip Service - Maggie Fox and Sue Ryding - have been doing comedy parodies for years and you have to admire their imagination and ideas.

From knitted sets to umpteen other stylistic and set devices, the pair have ploughed a familiar furrow of homely, funny shows that rarely outstay their welcome and usually send the crowd out into the night with a smile on their collective face.

The latest effort, based on Wilde’s familiar Dorian Gray, follows the trend precisely, with amusing video sequences and even a “community choir” to sing along with the three songs.

Doreen (Fox) is a popular and vacuous local radio and TV show presenter who falls off the producers’ wanted list when she hits 55. Returning to school for a reunion, she remembers the youthful self-portrait hanging in the school’s art corridor and when the picture comes to life - like they do - she swops lives with the girl she used to be, who becomes famous all over again.

Mix into this the parallel tale of the old school friend and would-be eco-warrior Andrea (Ryding), who is keen for her support to save badgers and frogs from being squished on the A57, and we are set up for another Lip Service slice of fun and silliness.

And the result, choir and all, is funny and exudes the pair’s general homeliness - they are the theatrical comedy equivalent of macaroni cheese, comforting and without many surprises.

This is all very well as far as it goes, but here more than usual the story loses its focus. Lip Service isn’t averse to forgetting the plot if an idea comes to mind and generally speaking the two of them are more concerned with the jokes than the story, or so it has always seemed to me.

You can’t criticise their imagination and ideas but again you can be disappointed by the relatively slapdash plotting, staging, direction and indeed acting, despite help from set designer Foxton and other hard-working backstage people in this Coliseum co-production.

I know Lip Service’s fans cherish them and have for years, but sometimes it seems Fox and Ryding rely on that a little too much.