Stage Dragon: Perfectly Ordinary, Bellerby Studio at G Live

Published on: 25 Jul, 2018
Updated on: 25 Jul, 2018

By Ferenc Hepp

Mental health is very much in the news nowadays and a lot of us have been affected by it directly or indirectly in some way, or know someone who has.

Therefore Perfectly Ordinary presented as part of the Guildford Fringe Festival at the Bellerby Studio in G Live is very timely indeed.

Perfectly Ordinary presented as part of the Guildford Fringe Festival at the Bellerby Studio in G Live.

The book, lyrics and direction of this brand new musical is by a current Guildford School of Acting student, Matthew Rankcom, music composed by Joe Wilson who is also musical director, and choreographed by Lizzie Nance.

The setting is a psychiatric ward in a hospital and the Bellerby Studio the space was set up with three rows of chairs on either side of the stage area with some hospital partitions and the MD with a keyboard at the top of the stage.

Both backstage and front of house doors were used as exits and entrances by the cast, and all this worked very well in this versatile space.

We meet all the characters during or soon after the opening number (Sunrise) which is reprised two more times during the show. They are all patients in the ward, with the exception of Pinky, who is the busy nurse looking after them all.

One of the first patients we meet is James, played by Peter Noden, who does not quite know why he is in hospital and sees things that others don’t.

As well as the group numbers, there are lots of lovely intimate, individual scenes throughout and one of the first we see is between James and Pinky (Jenni Winter).

Noden’s characterisation in particular is very well done, with expressive facial expressions and a lot of emotion behind the dialogue. He also ends up having some lovely moments with ‘The Girl’ (Kate Landy) who is into her Harry Potter and magic, and she ends up playing a big part in his recovery.

Landy as The Girl is very much in her own ‘magical’ world and there is something very likeable about that. Eileen, who still thinks that her husband is coming to see her despite him having passed away, is portrayed with a touching sensitivity by Pippa Winslow (The Sound of Music UK Tour, 9 to 5 The Musical and Sister Act among a long list of credits). And there is also a strong emotional bond between Noah (Sean Hanratty) and Suzie (Alexandra Lewis) which gets more complex through the piece whereby due to the loss of a child Suzie imagines Noah to be her son, which devastates Noah as he likes Suzie in a different way.

Both Hanratty and Lewis give a 110% and the change and development in their relationship is clear to see.

Each character is coping with their condition differently and is trying to get out of it in their own way, but we also feel that this is a group effort and they have something in common.

Yes, this piece is about mental health and yes, it is a very important issue, but Rankcom’s script and Wilson’s music do not try and ram the message down our throats. It is a ‘perfectly ordinary’ combination of sentiment and humour, the writing is very clever, complemented with a lot of memorable songs and the audience for this world premiere on Tuesday (July 24) were quite rightly very appreciative.

It would have been interesting to receive some background notes instead of just a cast list, and I also felt that the interval somewhat broke up the emotional journey that all of us have been on, but this is certainly a piece with a huge amount of potential.

I certainly hope that this is developed further as it deserves to be seen by a lot more people than a full house at the Bellerby Studio.

The company can be found on social media via @ordinarymusical and they can be contacted via perfectlyordinary@gmail.com

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