“Black Comedy” by Peter Shaffer
Nottingham New Theatre

First performed in 1965, this one act farce which opens on a darkened stage, when there is then an outage of the lights, and then the play becomes lit, reversing the “blackout” and creating the pun in the title.

Brindsley Miller (Harry Pavlou), a young sculptor, and his debutante fiancée Carol Melkett (Lois Baglin) have borrowed some expensive, antique furniture from his neighbour Harold Gorringe (Sasha Gibson)'s flat without his permission in order to impress an elderly millionaire art collector, George Bamberger (Reilly Salmon) coming to view Brindsley's work, and Carol's father Colonel Melkett (Hugo Minta). When the power fails, Harold returns early, and Brindsley's ex-mistress Clea (Selin Aci) shows up unexpectedly, things slide into comedy disaster for him.

Throw into this mix an elderly neighbour, Miss Furnival (Emilie Brittain) and a foreign electricity board worker, Schuppanzigh (Jack Ellis) who they mistake for the millionaire art collector and the recipe for comedy madness is complete.

I's seen this play a few years ago and knew how funny it is, so I eagerly anticipated this production, and I was not disappointed.

It takes talented actors, directors, producers etc to bring the comedy from the page alive and they certainly did that.

Louis Djalili I am so glad that your Dad pointed you in the direction of this play because you did a cracking job of it. Farce is not the easiest of forms to get right but the whole pace of this play was perfect and you obviously got the very best out of the cast and crew. If this is the last play you work on for NNT, I think you can say that you went out on a massive high.

Harry Pavlou, I've seen you in many plays and have nothing but compliments for your talents. This play for me is the cherry on top of the cake - even though I still love "Dead The Musical" to bits. Your comic timing and physical comedy is an absolute joy to watch. Comedy obviously comes as second nature to you.

Talking of physical comedy, Lois Baglin matched Harry every step of the way and I love the "posh" debutante accent which added so much to the character and comedy.

Hugo Minta was wonderfully over the top as the Colonel, a proper archetypal shouty army old timer.

Emilie Brittain is a wonderful character actor, Playing Miss Furnival really put the "fun" into Furnival as the character spirals slowly from God-fearing goody goody tea total neighbour into the most wonderful lush ever. Method acting at its' best.

Sasha Gibson just makes me smile whenever I see her perform and playing a man made me smile even more, Like Emilie, Sasha is a talented character actor and I loved the camp overtones of the character.

Selin Aci really looked to enjoy this role. Not only did she get to grips with Harry but to play a sexy,

mischievous and naughty character seemed to be something that she relished, and she did it well!

The two cameo roles causing some confusion within the play's storyline are played by Jack Ellis as the electrician who turns up to resolve the fuse outage and Reilly Salmon who's come to view the sculptures, and share the same accent. No wonder there was confusion!

Farce is all about comedy timing and this cast have obviously worked hard on this. The laughs come thick and fast, and not just giggles or chuckles, proper belly laughs. It is great to see comedy written in the 1960's getting such a brilliant reaction from the students.

The split level set could just be the best that I've seen. Designed by Beth Mullen.

One thing that could make or break a production like this is the Light design and Ian Webster smashed this, Again it's all in the timing and the timing was split second spot on.

Can i just say that I also loved the programme design. Very reminiscent of the old 90's hip hop style drawn characters

This will be the last NNT production for some of the students, and I for one hope that they will continue with their theatrical talents, as it would be such a waste if they didn't. I've enjoyed watching everything that you've done at NNT, and I hope that I get to see you in more stuff away from NNT, I'll watch out for your names.

“Black Comedy” is at the Nottingham New Theatre until Saturday 17 March 2018. it's one not to be missed if you want to exercise your chuckle muscles.