Parked up at Mortimer

Mortimer Dramatic Society: Third Week in August, at St John's Hall Mortimer, on Fridays and Saturdays, May 30 and 31, June 6 and 7

Peter Gordon's play, like many comedies and in true Alan Ayckbourn style, points up the sadness and weakness to be found in many people living what appear on the surface, to be typical, ordinary lives.

The setting is a seaside caravan park where Sue, played by Terri Chopping with a calmness and refusal to be harried, arrives to find Neville, a big blustery man, determined to enjoy his annual holiday in spite of his wife Mary's attempts to sabotage it.

Tom Shorrock was believable as the incompetent but well-meaning Neville and Mary Auckland showed us a nervous, uptight woman, who is too busy trying to sort out her sister's life to see what a mess she is making of her own.

Paula Stenson played Lizzy, Mary's sister, with spirit and Ian Beavon was the laid-back, never-fazed Tony. Pippa Roberts was good as a complaining, never happy girlfriend to Tony, but perhaps overdid the facial expressions a wee bit.

It was a very good setting, with the fields and sea in the distance and some real caravan parts that the actors could enter and exit. If it was a shade slow moving, that was down to the playwright more than the Mortimer actors and director, as all the players gave fascinating portrayals of people that you just knew – however much they complained and planned to 'go abroad next year' – were going to return to their caravan park in 12 months’ time.

Full marks to the props and costume people and the rather overworked continuity girl, Jennifer Broom, who had a little more to do than she should have.

DEREK ANSELL