(Rowan Bartlett, Derek de Froberville and Allan Quihampton)Whacky, easy-going show sees a bunch of nuns aiming to convert a priest-to-be. (Review by Caroline Smart)
Currently running at Rhumbelow Theatre, Bad Habits is a comedy drag presentation from the hard-working Family Players. This is the group who turned this little-used MOTH Hall in Umbilo into an active and well-equipped popular performance venue.
On arrival at the theatre, you get drawn into the action as a group of “nuns” are wandering around selling programmes. Also cause for amusement was the incongruity of the sight while the tannoy is playing numbers appropriate to the MOTH organisation such as Colonel Bogey and The Dambusters marches!
The whacky storyline of Bad Habits deals with a priest-to-be of the Glenhood Mission. He’s miserable and the nuns, who love him dearly, want to make him happy. Cue for How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?from The Sound of Music. In discussion with the Reverend Mother, the nuns decide that he should become one of them. They set about doing a fund-raising performance to help him with his physical transformation and he eventually ends up as Sister Maria.
The show creates a fast-moving mix of numbers from Nunsense such as Nunsense is Habit-Forming; Holier than Thou and Just a Coupl'a Sisters. Anthony Stonier does a delightful Country Nun with a puppet and Allan Quihampton was engaging in I’m Just a Girl who Cain’t Say No from Oklahoma. Derek de Froberville moved easily from a depressed cleric to a gospel-belting nun and Roland Stansell was hilarious in a double-speed version of The Lonely Goatherd. Rowan Bartlett virtually stole the show with his ebullience and energy.
Bad Habits is mainly lip-synched (performers acting without sound to backing tracks) mixed with a few live numbers from Anthony Stonier, Rowan Bartlett and Derek Pearce, the latter impressing with his lip-synched presentation of Whistle Down the Wind.
Lip-synch is an acquired skill and it is vital to pull it off properly. While singing to backing tracks is challenging enough as the mechanical format of the medium means the music continues like a factory line and you have to keep up. Lip-synching requires further pressure because your lyrics have to be word for word and second for second with the recorded artist. The performer also has to look as if he or she is actually singing and therefore the body must reflect the physical effort and breathing that responds to the song’s demands.
I do admit to having a problem with the show’s mix of live and lip-synched numbers – the latter being such a specific style and one that allows performers to appear to move freely outside their normal vocal range.
Bad Habits runs this weekend and again from June 15 to 17 with performances on Friday and Saturday at 20h00 (Sundays at 18h30). The venue opens 90 minutes before the show for picnic dinner. Tickets R100 and booking is essential. There is a cash bar (no alcohol may be brought on to the premises) and patrons are invited to take along food picnic baskets and braais are available. Rhumbelow Theatre is situated in Cunningham Avenue off Bartle Road and there is limited secure parking
Booking is through Computicket or contact Roland on 031 205 7602 (h) or 082 499 8636, email roland@stansell.za.net or visit www.rhumbelow.za.net – Caroline Smart
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