“I’ll Get My Man” by St Peter’s Hill Players, Grantham Guildhall, 9th May 2024
Do we have a vicar? Check. Is he missing his trousers? Check. Yes, “I’ll Get My Man” is full-on British mid-20th century farce. Written by Philip King in the mid-60s, it’s a loose follow-up to “See How They Run”, his most successful play, penned back in the 40s. Characters in hiding and donning disguises in a well-to-do English village where reputation and etiquette reign is classic farce material. Add into that a vicar who appears to have a very tenuous grip on social interaction and we have a recipe for laughs, providing you relate to the shame and embarrassment from another era. Fundamentally, it’s the play’s dated feel that you notice early on.
It is therefore critical that the actors portray their characters effectively and the cast of St Peter’s Hill Players did a sterling job of keeping the audience’s attention. The first two characters we see on stage were the Reverend Arthur Humphrey (Andy Masters) and his housekeeper, Mrs Carter (Suzie Stevens) and they kept the energy levels high. Andy added plenty of expression to the vicar’s eccentricities while Suzie was excellent as the loud, bustling, no-nonsense Mrs Carter.
In contrast, the vicar’s sister, Harriett Humphrey (Jacqueline Dowse) is all about control and decorum. The further into the play we go the more Harriett’s grip on sanity is tested and one of the high points is Jaqueline’s depiction of prim Harriett running off the rails.
There are two catalysts to the chaos: first of all we have the arrival of Winifred Barrington-Locke (Rachel Armitage) a man-eating buxom widow who mentions advertising for a new man – and is overheard by our trouserless vicar. Rachel exuded confidence and it looked like she thoroughly enjoyed her role. Then, the vicar’s nephew, Peter ‘Venture Man’ Graham (Paul Dexter) turns up needing a place to hide. Peter is a TV star, considered Britain’s most sought-after bachelor and a recent run-in with a young pop diva has had him running for the hills. Paul is a born comic actor and easily coped with the requirement for Peter Graham to adopt a fake vicar persona whilst in hiding. His ‘out-of-character’ asides were well delivered.
Special mention should also go to Lucy Kelley who was superb as Josephine de Brissac, the deranged visitor answering the vicar’s ill-considered classified ad for female company.
The final members of the cast were Verity Connor as Pixie Potter and Tony Hine as the Bishop of Lax. These two characters represent denouement moments: Pixie is the pop star that Peter is hiding from, while the Bishop’s arrival and investigation into the vicar’s ad could result in Reverend Humphrey losing his parish. As such, they are more devices than fully-formed characters but both Verity and Tony provided good presence and authority. Interestingly, both underwent transformations: Pixie Potter is actually a ‘nice girl’ once she’s been given a bath (I think this speaks volumes about the playwright’s attitude to women in pop in the 60s) and the Bishop turns out to be Winifred’s long-lost first love; Tony captured the change from stern authority-figure to bashful lipstick-smeared bloke very well.
The set & lighting was sufficient albeit quite static but as everything takes place in the same room there’s not much requirement for anything different. The costumes were generally in keeping with the period & the characters. No prompts were required and the cueing of the sound effects (the vicar’s phone rang several times) was generally good.
The play was well-received by the audience with laughs in all of the right places. Some positioning and blocking could have been better but it all more or less worked. The one area that could definitely have improved upon was making some of the comedy scenes slicker. Farce comedy requires very tight delivery of lines and action and although the cast did reasonably well it was clear that this was the opening night. With more time and closer direction the cast would have been able to polish the delivery to really zing.
N.K. Rowe 
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