Sarah Smith as Katrina Lyons (foreground) with Anne Potter as The Computer and Steve Fisher as Richard Lyons and Elsie Spiers as Lucy Alexander. Photo / Willi Werner Photozone
Sarah Smith as Katrina Lyons (foreground) with Anne Potter as The Computer and Steve Fisher as Richard Lyons and Elsie Spiers as Lucy Alexander. Photo / Willi Werner Photozone
Review: WHAT: Welcome To Our Village – Please Invade Carefully WHERE: Shambles Theatre WHEN: Until May 11
It goes without saying if there's one thing actors have to be it's adaptable.
After a lull which saw it bringing much of the same season after season with limited casts, Rotorua's Little Theatre's rapidlybecoming masters of the adaptability art with welcome fresh faces mingling with seasoned players.
From A Midsummer Night's Dream the steam punk way, they've gone off the planet with their latest offering Welcome To Our Village - Please Invade Carefully.
It's every bit as whacky as that cumbersome title suggests.
Under the direction of Richard Rugg, who did such a brilliant job playing Bottom in Dream, this latest Shambles production's about as different as they come.
First broadcast on BBC Radio in 2012 it tells of an English village's invasion by outer space beings bringing a force field that hems locals in.
As programme notes make clear, this is a theatrical production of a radio show developed for a viewing audience.
Rugg and his cast have done a fine job with such a challenging adaptation. Miming and timing are great.
Isabella Carrington, 11, as the Minion with Mike Long as Gryvook in Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully. Photo / Willi Werner Photozone
The Geomins who come calling are allegedly high-tech but, at best, inept.
Commands are executed by a computer fronted by the on screen presence of Anne Potter.
Tucked away inside its inner workings she tardily executes the commands of her leader Uljabaan (Greg Davis).
Clad in Plus Fours in a failed attempt to blend with the Brits, he takes them on at cricket which, due to the computer's sluggish atmospheric agitator, takes some time to be rained off – to the relief of both sides.
So the invaders 'Englishfication' and the Brits' assimilation of their extra-terrestrial ways goes on until space master Gryvook (Mike Long) descends, scuppering Uljabaan's plans to make planet Earth the universe's call centre.
Long's one of several multi-tasking performers. He's equally convincing playing Weird Patrick, the village idiot, as he is as the lord of world domination.
One minute a cast member's delivering lines, the next they're seated at what's presumably the space ship's control panels, while simultaneously operating the play's sound effects.
It's two of the lesser role players who take acting honours. As the whirring, whining printer Kuldeep Dhiman is stony faced funny, a hard ask that.
At only 11, Isabella Carrington representing the invader's minions, continues her talented family's theatrical skills. The unintelligible alien grunts and gurgles she mutters into the sleeve of her over-inflated chicken suit are this space odyssey's apex.
All up, well executed entertainment for an early winter's night out.
