REVIEW: No Sex Please We're British, Barn Theatre, Southwick

In fact a phone falling off the wall got the biggest laugh at The Barn Theatre, Southwick, tonight.

It was good to see how well the cast handled the accident, with Andrea Jones as Frances making a valiant effort to hide her own laughter, very sensibly moving so she had her back to the audience, and later pointedly holding the phone on wall for her call to ensure it didn’t happen again.

The phone did feature rather a lot in this popular 1970s farce, so it was just as well it pretty much stayed put after that little episode.

The audience certainly seemed to enjoy it all and there were times when almost the entire crowd burst into spontaneous laughter simultaneously.

But while there were moments of brilliance, there were also an unusual number of slip-ups in the lines tonight, meaning some of the funnier parts were fumbled and rather spoiled.

Mark Best was outstanding as Brian, who gets closer and closer to breaking point as the madness of the play about an unwanted delivery of risque photos goes on.

His final flopping backwards over the sofa almost made everyone jump!

Pam Luxton did make a few mistakes but she delivered her punchlines with dry humour, making a perfect posh mother-in-law from hell.

John Garland gave an assured performance as Mr Needham and the scene where he has to drop his trousers was handled well.

It was also nice to see some quite a number of new faces on the Wick stage.

The set was excellent and stood up to the endless opening and closing of innumerable doors and a hatch with a mind of its own.

It’s really a very silly play and probably a bit dated now but Wick played up to it and the Benny Hill style runaround was great fun.

The play still holds the record as the longest running English farce and I have to say most seemed to like it but for me, it was just a bit too long.

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