Neighbourhood Watch
Tuesday 18 - Saturday 22 October 2022 
Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds 
Director: Nic Metcalfe

Our cast and crew enjoyed a special visit from Nigel Havers.
Nigel is the patron of our society and had come to support us!
Mr Havers said "I enjoyed it enormously, what a treat, I had forgotten what a wonderful play it is- what an achievement to carry that off so brilliantly"

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Cast

Hilda - Jess Hughes
Martin - Phil Cockell
Magda - Phoebe Bartlett
Rod - John Levantis
Gareth - Ben Child
Amy - Anna Damigella
Dorothy - Jane Haythornthwaite-Smith
Luther - Lee Berry​

​Suffolk News Review

Under the watchful, experienced and supportive eyes of Nigel Havers, the patron of Bury St Edmunds Operatic and Dramatic Society (BSEODS), this Ayckbourn play provides a fascinating blend of darkness and humour.

BSEODS, now in their 120th year, gave a riveting performance under first-time Director Nic Metcalfe. It was very well cast with an array of characters you may well come across in everyday life. But not quite in the blend these all meet!

Martin (Phil Cockell) and Hilda (Jess Hughes) are brother and sister with a relationship of care and love to each but also for others through their religion. Innocently they form a neighbourhood watch which soon descends into their estate adopting a totalitarian style of control. It’s funny and scary at the same time which is a theme repeated several times through the play. Ayckbourn’s ability to weave two contrasting topics so successfully is totally absorbing. Jess opened the play with a poignant monologue which you fully understand at the end. Later, Philip does his own version which is more of a rant, but both were excellently performed.

The characters on the committee came in the form of Dorothy (Jane Haythornwaite-Smith) as the gossip-monger who was never short of invented material. Ron (John Levantis), the retired security guard, who stepped up too willingly to adopt their own civil controls making our recent Covid restrictions seem meek. Adding a different kind of spice to many a man's life was Amy (Anna Damigella). Her long-suffering husband Gareth (Ben Child) seemed a defeated character. By contrast Magda (Phoebe Bartlett) was the nervous wreck with a background of abuse against her including that by her husband Luther (Lee Berry) - the archetypal bully. Forming a neighbourhood committee was never conceived to create such a Frankenstein monster which this group of neighbours gave birth to. But the play drew out the attitudes, bias and uncontrolled zest for power that we still see about us today.

Well done to the hard-working and talented cast for providing a stimulating and entertaining show.
What an amazing and moving ending!

By Robert Wright

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