It’s always a glorious feeling to see a production of the Eric series at this time of the year. The audience is guaranteed a warm feel good feeling at the end of the evening and it serves as a lovely entrée to the festive season feast.
I am pleased to report that the revamped version of Eric’s Christmas Turkey is another massive hit that had the audience hooting with laughter and dancing to the perfectly performed musical intervals.
Bev (Laura Sheppard) has decided to join Basford Amateur Dramatics – known as BAD for reasons that become very clear as the play progresses – and has persuaded Eric (David Graham) to go to rehearsals with her. Hoping to meet some new women, Eric agrees to go along with his partner and finds his eye quickly attracted to company member Twink (Carly Cook).
Twink is desperate for a man but not so desperate that she is pleased with Eric’s amorous advances but with Bev very much struck by Company Director Rupert (Joe Sterling) a thespian career for the pair seems to be the future.
Complications arise when it is realised that the rehearsal room has been double-booked with a band that comprises the lascivious Steve (Alan Howell), Sheila (Helen Spall) who is mocked for her daytime job in the local library, Ray (Andrew Farrell) who takes great pleasure in making sarcastic remarks about band leader Steve and the quietly spoken drummer Pongo (Tom Bevan)
A stand off between actors and musicians is averted when the two companies decide to amalgamate and the production of The Mysterious Murder at Middleport Manor The Musical can commence.
The audience quickly realises that the play can never be a success when the cast do a first read through of the script in hilarious fashion. And so it proves
The second half of the production covers the opening night of the murder mystery and is a perfect parody of an am dram presentation with missed cues, dead bodies rolling around the floor, props that don’t work and actors not knowing their lines.
This all fits together so well and has the audience enthralled throughout and is yet another piece of Eric magic. Graham knows what his audience wants and the different plots of each of his plays are vehicles for a stream of dad jokes delivered with panache accompanied by knockabout antics and concert level performances of music mainly from the 60s by the highly proficient cast of actor-musicians.
There is fabulous panto-like interaction with the audience – the Wild Thing spot is hugely entertaining – and the audience is more than willing to join in the fun of the party thrown as the finale to a perfect evening’s enjoyment.
Sophistication is not the name of Eric’s game but after more than two decades of the franchise the twice-yearly productions are very much a must see. To induce a perfectly respectable gentleman audience member to sit with a cuddly turkey on his head for a damp December evening, then David Graham and his company must be doing something right.
The only disappointment of the night was that it had to end. I can’t wait for the summer when Eric will grace the New Vic stage again.
Eric’s Christmas Turkey has a running time of approximately 2 hours 45 minutes including interval and continues to December 13th . For ticket information contact 01782 717962 or tickets@newvictheatre.org.uk
