Review: Cash on Delivery at The Mill at Sonning

Writing a good farce must take a particular sort of brain. A funny line requires a bit of flair, layering scenes to a hilarious crescendo demands deeper thought and creating a farce must be equivalent to orchestration.

Cash on Delivery is written by Michael Cooney who is the son of farce master Ray, so the talent for farcical fun is strong – you could say It ‘Runs in the Family’ (also the title of a Ray Cooney comedy, a hit at the Mill last year).

The comfortable living room of the Swans is the setting for all drama, with a staircase and doors leading off and windows looking out to a suburban street.

Eric (Steven Pinder) is trying to get through to the social security department to cancel his benefit payments. Each time his wife, Linda (Natasha Gray), enters the room, he hurriedly stuffs the phone down his trousers – leading to inevitable problems.

The scene neatly establishes the date, October 30 1996 (hence the chunky phone handset) and tells us that Eric is up to no good.

Wife Linda (Natasha Gray) is concerned by her distracted husband, ‘If there was anything wrong you would talk to me, wouldn’t you darling?’

But of course, in true farce style, he does not.

Having lost his job at the electricity board, Eric has been obtaining his income through a tangle of fraudulent benefit claims. But when DSS officer Mr Jenkins (Harry Gostelow) unexpectedly arrives, Eric is forced to pose as his former lodger, Rupert Thompson – supposedly laid low by crippling gout.

From there, the lies multiply and the misunderstandings produce all sorts of verbal and physical comedy.

Eric’s current lodger Norman (James Bradshaw) is reluctantly swept into the farce early on.

Throw in a well-meaning family liaison officer (Rachel Fielding), a medical supplies-stealing uncle (Michael Shaw), an eager counsellor (Oscar Cleaver) a Welsh undertaker (Titus Rowe), a fearsome boss (Felicity Duncan) and a confused fiancée (Melanie Gutteridge) and the tangle of complications and confusion is set.

As a character says, the situation didn’t snowball, ‘it avalanched’

The script would have benefited with an update. The plot hangs on the fact that Eric has lost his job but he clearly doesn’t have the excuse of being on the breadline for all this fraud. And the cross dressing references are now as dated as the tan surgical stockings purloined by Uncle George.

But, like the hapless Jenkins, who ends up attacked by washing machine and lightning, the audience gets caught up and swept along.

The cast are strong on physical comedy and Pinder and Bradshaw – on stage almost all the time – keep the energy high and the action swinging along in style.

It’s not flawless, but it delivers.

Cash on Delivery will be showing at The Mill at Sonning until Saturday, April 4.