Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Charlie Griffiths, Jodie Nesbitt, Angela Simms, Donna Lesley Price, Richie Grice, Chris Crookall, Lesley Hughes, Trev Fleming, James William-Watts, Michael Swift.
To see how far an idea can go, to see it flourish and become part of a city’s conscious, you don’t have to go a long way from the centre of town to the Epstein Theatre to witness the power of a great play and the imagination to keep taking it one stage further. When the Unity Theatre staged Donna Lesley Price’s supremely funny play If The Shoe Fits, no one could surely have envisioned just how it would grow and take root. From the Unity to the Floral Pavilion on the other side of the Mersey and now to one of the heart-land theatres, If The Shoe Fits continues to blossom and be an outstanding piece of Liverpool theatre.
The reason for its success are numerous but in the end it boils down to a cracking script that looks deep into a side of the city that rarely gets looked at in any real depth and an outstanding and remarkable cast that give everything they possess to make the play an absolute gem, a diamond that becomes more and more polished every time it gets performed.
From Charlie Griffiths’ brilliant portrayal of the loveable Liz, Angela Simms’ role as Sally, who every year grows more and more into the role and the excellent Jodie Nesbitt as the brittle but desperately unhappy Chas, the three women, who may be work mates in Goody Two Shoes but in the end are more like the best of bickering sisters, once again shine as brightly and as proudly as St. John’s Beacon. Even if it was just these three actors on stage, the play would be considered great. To add the outstanding newcomer to the ensemble, Chris Crookall, a man who makes the fetish approach to shoes seem entirely plausible and insanely good, the marvellous Lesley Hughes, Michael Swift, Trev Fleming and the man people cheer at loudly when he gets his just desserts towards the end of the piece, the wonderful James William Watts, just tips the play over into dreamland.
Without Donna Lesley Price and Richie Grice though, the play would be robbed of two of the great characters of 21st century local theatre. Daphne, played by Ms Price, oozes fun and surreal acting beauty and Richie Grice is simply magnificent as shop owner Jamie. The whole combination of a cast that buys into a script unlike anything else written is heart-warming and a production of startling prominence.
If The Shoe Fits? Of course it does and thankfully so.
Ian D. Hall