Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Jake Abraham, Eithne Browne, Suzanne Collins, Lindzi Germain, Angela Simms, Alan Stocks, Lenny Wood.
The world is a harsh place at times, not everybody plays by the same rules and those who are fair, honest and upright in their morals are the ones forever being treated like dirt, that they have the very will to continue offering the service they do is a measure of their honour, that they refuse to be stitched up by those kicking against them a sign of their trustworthy and good nature.
Eventually though everybody cracks and when the crooked landlord of the dry cleaners spies yet another opportunity to raise the rent on the shop again, something inside comes out and the workers finally find a way to come clean with their ambition. Clothes maketh the woman and the team certainly find a way to raise the heat in A Fistful of Collars.
Each player upon the stage had the very best of reasons to shine during A Fistful of Collars, a great cast, one that gels so well off it, will always find the reason to bring everybody up to the point of being a crucial and essential member of the team; that each one is fundamental to the narrative, that there is not a single thread left unexplored during the two hours of comedy.
Fred Lawless’ comedy not only calls for the farce to be seen but also to be felt, to be placed within, the sign of a superbly written play is to consider what you would do in the place of one of the protagonists and in the exceptional Lenny Wood as Billy and his warring friendship with Angela Simms’ Leona marks its territory on stage, you cannot help but be drawn to them. Lenny Wood especially captures the imagination with his instantly considered and well placed facial expressions as the day’s events start to go drastically wrong.
A beautifully performed piece, characters with who you can empathise with on any social scale and delivered with the usual industry and collective cool associated with any performers engaged in the very fabric of the Royal Court Theatre. A Fistful of Collars is a play in which everything is sewn up wonderfully for the audience and spotless in its comedy; get your hands on a ticket and seize this gold ribbon play with affection.
Ian D. Hall