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 The Argosy Players in: Fish out of Water by Derek Benfield
Staged: 25 to 27 May 1967 at Crane Theatre Hanover Street Liverpool
 If there is
one aspect of a Martins Bank production you could expect to “bank on”
(forgive the pun) is it the size and loyalty of the audience for each and
every production. However, with the
1967 production of “A Fish out of Water” it would appear that The Argosy
Players may just have mis-judged their potential audience, by staging the
play during the May Bank Holiday!
However, as we learn from the article below, printed in the Autumn
1967 edition of Martins Bank Magazine, what was lost by having only a small
audience was more than made up for by excellent performances from the
players themselves.
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Incidentally, Derek Benfield, an actor with a long TV career
spanning nine years of “Coronation Street” (Granada 1961-69) “Timeslip”
(ATV 1970) to “Hetty Wainthropp Investigates” (BBC 1996-98) was also a
prolific playwright, and “Fish out of Water” is one of fifteen plays he
wrote for the stage. He died in 2009.
 It
was perhaps more with curiosity than eager anticipation that we took our
seats at the Crane Theatre, Liverpool, on May 25 for the first of the three
nights' showing of Fish Out of
Water by Derek Benfield, presented by the Argosy Players. After all,
only five weeks' rehearsals and several of the cast an unknown quantity . .
. That it was the spring bank
holiday that week-end was reflected in the unfortunate lack of spectators,
a select band who made up for their scanty numbers by their enthusiastic
reception of what turned out to be a most entertaining and amusing production.
The play opened with Philip Brayshaw and Annette Gilroy
as a brigadier and his 'refined' wife in an hotel in sun-drenched Italy: he
somewhat henpecked, she caustic and aloof, both snobbish and rather bored,
Moira Lightbound, appearing as the maid Marisa, managed her Italian accent
well: she came over as a sympathetic yet vivacious character.
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Image © Martins
Bank Archive Collections
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Left to Right: Hilary Gray, Valerie Parish, Terry
Mudd, Annette Gilroy, David Powell, Philip Brayshaw, Moira Lightbound,
Michael Lucas.
Marion McQuaid was ill and missed the rehearsal
where the photograph was taken
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Image © Martins Bank Archive
Collections
Liverpool Echo 25 May 1967
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One did wish, however, that producer Frank Warburton had been able
to devise something for her to do besides moving a pile of magazines from
one spot to another at repeated intervals. Irrupting into the calm of the
afternoon siesta, Valerie Parish took the part of Agatha, a loud, brash,
Cockney widow ready to take charge of her cringing fellow-guests, barring
their escape routes and brow-beating them into jolly games of cricket on
the beach in the heat of the Italian sun. They were on holiday to enjoy themselves
and she was determined that they should do so, if it killed her. This was
the dominating character of the play and Valerie gave an outstanding
performance which just couldn't be faulted. Agatha's down-trodden sister
Fiona, an excellent portrayal by Hilary Gray wearing glasses and with hair
scraped back in a bun, looked the absolute antithesis of Agatha. Timid,
pessimistic, completely at a loss in such an environment, she wished
herself at her usual hotel in Eastcliffe where at least the food was eatable.
Another smash-hit performance was given by Michael Lucas as an exhausted
courier wilting under the strain of caring for 'the two old bags' in his
charge.
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One felt sympathy for him, and an ex-courier in the
audience asserted that his experiences were not at all exaggerated. When
Fiona 'came over queer' she managed to escape from Agatha's domination for
a quiet paddle in the sea with Jack, another guest. David Powell played
this character with the suitably nervous manner of a fussy bank clerk,
never a halfpenny wrong in his cash during his twenty years at the bank,
who had become separated from his coach party. However, his encounter with
Fiona provided consolation and by the end of the play they seemed bound for
the altar in spite of Fiona's earlier advocacy of the advantages of
spinsterhood.
The theme of the subplot was a predilection by
Dora (Marion McQuaid), a bus conductress from Yorkshire, for Len (Terry
Mudd), a cocksure Cockney ready for romance, but not with Dora. However,
after his advances towards Marisa were repulsed--'! have four brothers,
very beeg and very strrong'—he
seemed prepared to settle for Dora when she appeared in glamorous guise
for the fiesta. It was not a
complicated or sophisticated play, but plenty of witty lines, good acting
and production ensured an entertaining evening for those who were able to
be present.
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