Thurrock Courts players have a massive local reputation as an outstanding theatre comedy company! So they are delighted to be going back to their comedy roots with their latest production of Not Now Darling, a classic Ray Cooney and John Chapman farce that was a huge West End hit.
It is 1969 and London is swinging! No not like that! It is the days of Carnaby Street, Hippies, Flower Power, MaryQuant fashion, The Beatles, before the fur trade was frowned upon and to quote a famous politician of the time ‘the liberated society is the civilised society’ or roughly translated free love! Well, as far as Free Love is concerned Gilbert Bodley, of ‘Bodley, Bodley and Crouch’ exclusive West End furriers mistakenly believes it also comes with a price, a £5,000 Mink Coat to persuade the gorgeous exotic dancer Janie McMichael into a night of passion with him whilst his wife is away on holiday in Monaco.
Problem, Janie’s husband Harry, a London Casino owner wouldn’t pay that money for a coat, not even for his wife! But Gilbert has a plan to sell it to him for Janie for just £500, paying the rest himself. Straightforward enough? Gilbert, a coward, gets timid coat designer Arnold to handle the sale who is shocked when Gilbert lets him in to his little secret.
After Janie and Harry arrive to see the coat Janie truly falls in love – with the coat! Arnold fluffs the sale and Harry won’t pay £500, loses his patience and storms out of the salon leaving Janie wearing the coat that Gilbert now tells her she can’t have. So she quickly strips down to her underwear and then throws her clothes out of the window threatening to walk out of the salon there and then and back to Harry!
Gilbert and Arnold put a fur coat on her as other clients are expected but Harry has his own ideas about who should get the coat and is on his way back to the salon. What he doesn’t know is by now she is stark naked under the coat having also thrown her knickers and bra out of the balcony window down into the street. Are you following this so far? I hope so because now things are set to get complicated and really warm up for Gilbert and the innocent Arnold! Sit back and enjoy even more chaos and panic and a laughter filled evening.
YT Spoke to Director Martyn Williams
