REVIEW: Round the Horne Unseen and Uncut
The Theatre Royal in Brighton was packed with people who had come to relive the Golden Age of Radio. They wanted to be transported back to the sixties when Round The Horne broadcast over four series, 66 episodes, between 1965 and 1968.
Now the series has been faithfully recreated in a new show featuring original episodes written by Barry Took and Marty Feldman. Barry's widow Lyn was script consultant and made sure the show is as close to the original as it could possibly be.
We were not sitting in the theatre in New Road, we were sitting in the famous Paris Studio watching a live broadcast. We closed our eyes and we could hear them all again, Kenneth Horne, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden, Kenneth Williams and Bill Pertwee.
The casting is impeccable, Jonathan Rigby not only looks like Kenneth Horne but sounds incredibly like him and Robin Sebastian is the definitive Kenneth Williams. Another lookalike is Sally Grace who is very well cast as Betty Marsden. Nigel Harrison fits Hugh Paddick like a glove as does Michael Shaw as Bill Pertwee. Stephen Boswell makes up the cast as the least known member of the team, Douglas Smith.
Even the singers, the Fraser Hayes Four are there, recreated by Chris Coleman, Deborah Crowe, Steve Fortune and Nathan Taylor. Behind the actors is an eight-piece live band and it is fascinating watching musical director Duncan Walsh Atkins cueing
in the musicians. He also accompanies the wonderful Rambling Sid Rumbold aka Kenneth Williams in his hilarious songs.
The show was thought up by director Richard Baron and is an evening of pure entertainment and nostalgia. How often with modern comedies do you hear real belly laughs coming from all over the theatre.
Amanda Wilkins
Round the Horne Unseen and Uncut, Theatre Royal, Brighton. Until Saturday November 22.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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