Girl, 10, bids for funding and wins £2,000 for club
HENLEY Sailing Club has been awarded a £2,000 ... [more]
WHAT would you do if, coming home to Fulham from your commute, you opened your briefcase to find it contained £1.5 million in £50 notes?
Take it straightaway to the nearest police station or go home and book a flight to Barcelona for a long-term holiday? In Funny Money, Henry Perkins, the accountant who has got the wrong briefcase, plans to make a getaway with his wife Jean before Mr Nasty turns up to claim the criminal cash.
And, this being a Ray Cooney comedy, things don’t go according to plan.
In fact Henry, adeptly played by Steven Pinder in this new production, and Jean (Natasha Gray) never get beyond the confines of their Fulham home.
Davenport, a distinctly dubious copper played by a scowling Eric Carte, arrives to question Henry not about the money but about his strange behaviour in the pub on the way home. Fortunately, he can be bought off with some of the funny money.
But when Slater, an unbent copper (Stuart Hall), calls to inform Jean that her husband’s murdered body has been fished out of the Thames, things get even more complicated.
The body is of course that of Mr Nasty, the rightful (i.e. wrongful) owner of the original briefcase but now posthumously clutching Henry’s, whose treasures include a cheese and chutney sandwich. The murderer of Mr Nasty must be Mr Big.
Now add to the mix a couple, Betty and Vic (Elizabeth Elvin and Harry Gostelow), who have been invited round to celebrate Henry’s birthday, and an increasingly irate taxi-driver (Charlie Parker-Swift), who has been booked to take the couple to Heathrow.
Cooney and the cast keep numerous balls spinning in the air as one fantastic invention is built on top of another and an entire imaginary family of visiting Australians is invented to account to Insp Slater for the goings-on.
There’s some traditional farcical business involving the exchange of briefcases on stage and plenty of convenient exits and entrances to say nothing of the final arrival of Mr Big in pursuit of the money that is (not) really his.
This production, directed by Ron Aldridge, is pacy and diverting and a welcome start to the autumn season at the Mill.
Philip Gooden
19 September 2022
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