Fun & fast-paced Modern Time Music Hall

There’s a collage of sketch, dance and song “from the shows” on offer in Modern Time Music Hall, Kennet Amateur Theatrical Society’s latest production.

With a thoroughly up-to-date collation, Director Janet Kilgallon-Brook and Producer Jenny Woolf lead a cast whose versatility brings Um Pah Pah from Oliver alongside, and without turning a hair, We Will Rock You from Queen. Lots of group numbers are interspersed with solo numbers, gentle duets and even a solo dance, a passionate expression of Lifeboat from the musical The Heathers.  And it’s utterly modern with its interpretation of I’m a Lumberjack – a progressively LBGQT+ identifying forester.

Adapted from a script sketch by Armstrong and Miller (of, you guessed it, The Armstrong & Miller Show), the returning sketch of ultra-woke-media-apologies by three oh-so-lovely media “personalities” takes a moment to tune into.  And then you get it.  The gushing, confessional, ever so sorry apologies for self-evidently dreadful sins – self-evident to everyone except the media perpetrator, while preening their fake contrition – that we’ve all heard over the years from Blue Peter to This Morning.  Excruciating… before the inevitable release of the next, happy item they’ve moved onto without so much as a backward glance.

Held together by compere Mike Cole, the production is good fun, fast paced and got all the classic set pieces – stockings and suspenders, nuns, and pirates (whose ambitions aren’t SPOILER ALERT, finding treasure, gold or gutting galleon sailors, but to have a training day).  Not universally slick but always full of wit and energy, even on the hottest night of the year when I watched a dress rehearsal, there was much to like, laugh at and enjoy in this happy production.

Three performances on Thursday 14^th, Friday 15^th and Saturday 16^th September at Bucklebury Memorial Hall.  Tickets are £11.  Worth a go!