Mirror Magazine

Mirror Magazine

What a web he has woven...
By Marisa de Silva
If you think your life is complicated, imagine the life of two-timing taxi driver John Smith who has quite successfully maintained two separate families for the past 18 years!

Caught in the Net, the long-awaited sequel to Ray Cooney’s mega hit comedy Run for your Wife of the eighties, is written 18 years down the line, when his teenage children (a girl from one family and a boy from the other) meet online and become anxious to meet in person.

The Performing Arts Company, under the direction of Nafeesa Amiruddeen and produced by Mohamed and Nadira Adamaly, presents “Caught in the Net”, on August 5-7 and 10-14, at the Lionel Wendt.

In this farcical comedy John’s (Mohamed Adamally) already hectic life shifts into high gear as he tries to keep his double life a secret. Its popular prequel (which ran in London for nine years) relates the story of London taxi driver, John Smith, who has two wives (played by Neidra Williams & Wanda Godlieb) in two different parts of London and thus has a very tight schedule to keep. Now, 18 years later, modern technology has again posed a threat to Smith’s double life and is about to lead his two families into a head-on collision.

The absolute irony of the play is brought out via a ‘merge scene’ where both John’s children Gavin (Kevin Francke) and Vicki (Ashini Fernando) Smith (one from each wife), are discussing having met one another online, with their respective mothers and how amazed they are at the huge coincidence that both their fathers are named John Leonard Smith and are London taxi drivers. Also, since romance has blossomed, they are determined to meet in person. The audience soon learns that the “amazing coincidences” are in fact due to them sharing the same father, but Smith’s families are still in the dark.

When Smith gets wind of their plan to meet, chaos ensues as he tries to keep the teens apart and keep his dual life secret from both his wives and kids. John quickly enlists the help of his dopey parasite boarder, Stanley Gardner
(Sean Amarasekera), who progresses from playing the accomplice role in the play’s prequel, to the protagonist role in this, which only leads to hilarious lies, mistaken identities and mysterious phone calls.

When Stanley’s senile father, better known as “Dad” (Arjuna Wignaraja) arrives for a holiday, it stirs up the antics even further. If something can go wrong, it will go...berserk!

Ray Cooney, a recognised “master of farce,” has been one of Britain’s most popular playwrights, having 18 shows in London’s West End to his credit. Although John is still flitting between a wife in Wimbledon and a wife in Streatham, abusing to full advantage the pretext of his “morning shift” and “night shift”, the play stands its ground independent of it’s prequel Run for your Wife, with its own web of confusion and can thus be enjoyed equally by those who missed out on its prequel.

The Performing Arts Company, formed by Adam and his sister Nafeesa in 1994 have had a stream of performances to their name including, Run for your Wife (1994 & 2002), Don’t dress for dinner (1995), Funny Money (1996), Death Trap (1998), Black Comedy (1999) and Death and the Maiden (2000).
Costumes will be done by the sisters-in-law combination Yasmin and Sakina Akbarally and Jehan Bastiansz will man the sound effects, which in this case includes a cacophony of doorbells and phone rings.

The performance is sponsored by Commercial Bank and co-sponsored by Suntel WOW. The official electronic media sponsor is TNL Lite, while Speitra has designed the promotional campaigns. Tickets are available at the Lionel Wendt.

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