Arts
Why Move Over, Mrs. Markham?
Ray Cooney earned his laurels as king of farce in the ’70s, and no one has managed to dethrone him so far. Jehan Bastians and Neidra Williams stand testimony to his magic. The two thespians from Silent Hands, in their young amateur days, fell under the spell of the farceur who weaved into his hilarious plays very dry British wit, great slapstick, and characters and situations who provoke mirth by themselves.
Neidra Williams as Mrs. Markham
Yet picking a Cooney play for performance would be tricky as some of them are saturated with the British political atmosphere of the time, or allusions to British culture. Having previously done Cooney’s Tom, Dick, and Harry and Yes, Hon. Minister (a local rendition of Two into One), they have decided on Move Over, Mrs. Markham, a play once directed by Jehan- who has decided to give himself a second run with Neidra in tow.
The action of Move Over, Mrs. Markham is confined to one bedroom- the single bedroom in the Markhams’ flat. Mr. Lodge has borrowed the bedroom from Mr. Markham for a clandestine rendezvous with his latest love interest, while Mrs. Lodge had asked Mrs. Markham for the room for an evening with the older man she is dating. And the Markhams’ au pair has decided to use the bedroom for her romance with the interior decorator at the same time: the merry devil is loose.
For Jehan, Move Over, Mrs. Markham brings to mind a blend of two golden British TV sitcoms from the ‘80s: for him it is as crazy, outlandish and in-your-face at times as ‘Allo ‘Allo!, and understated and tongue-in-cheek as Yes Minister. The two brands converge in the play so that any kind of humour will be tickled: the driest to the most exuberant and Wodehousian. For Neidra, one of the most exciting things is the genius of Cooney the writer, where he makes all the plot twists and the chaos fit in like a neat jigsaw puzzle.
If you think comedy is a breeze- light-hearted fun all the way for the cast- think again. Neidra knows that a tragedy, in comparison, is an immensely more feasible thing. “A tragedy comprises within itself solid elements that you can watch. And you can have a little bit more crying or a little bit less crying- it doesn’t matter because people will always be swayed by the emotions.”
Whereas comedy is all about the timing, it is walking a tightrope, where the delicate middle ground of not going over the limit and not going under the limit has to be observed- as laughter- the most spontaneous of things- is precarious and hard to evoke. It is only with practice in farce that you get that sense of timing and balance, Jehan says.
It’s all in the timing: Jehan Bastians as Mr. Lodge and Trudy Herft as Mrs. Lodge
But having said that, the rehearsals are always full of fun and rollicking good times. The cast is all young or young-at-heart (even though Jehan would beg to differ in his case, saying he is neither) and the great chemistry between them is the wind under the play’s wings- as a farce is very spontaneous, and actors feed on each other, the quality of your acting becoming only as good as your co-actor’s.
As everyone gets sucked in by the side-splitting vortex of irony and happenstance, will the good-natured Mrs. Markham be able to save the day for all of them? Where exactly will all the mayhem end? The classic comedy of errors goes on the boards at the Lionel Wendt from August 31 to September 2, from 7.30 to 9.30 p.m. Tickets are available at the Silent Hands’ Facebook and Instagram pages, and at the Wendt.