Sean Power - Reviews & Interviews

No Sex Please, We're British
13 Aug 1999 - The Georgina Advocate:
"Lots of Sex in No Sex Please We're British" (by John Slykhuis)

Lots of sex in No Sex Please, We're British

By JOHN SLYKHUIS
Editor

There's little wonder why the British farce No Sex Please, We're British is the longest running comedy in the world.

This hilariously delightful romp opened at the Red Barn Theatre on Wednesday and shouldn't be missed.

The story begins with a newly married upwardly mobile couple just back from their honeymoon who are getting ready to embark on a life together. Things look rosy: he's been appointed the assistant manager of a bank in Windsor, England and the couple settle in to an apartment above the bank.

Kevin Riordan and Leanna Brodie play the couple and they're terrific as they frantically descend into hysteria, covering up their problem with an increasingly fangled web of crazy stories. It should be mentioned that this is a first-class professional group of actors who have a slew of credits to their names. Anyway, she wants a home of their own and as a way of making some money, she writes to a Swedish import office to get some glassware to sell for extra income.

What arrives isn't glassware, but Swedish porn. They desperately try to hide the stuff from his visiting mother (played by veteran actress Elva Mai Hoover) and a visiting district bank inspector (Jim Neilly), the bank manager (Wally Michaels) and the obtuse, vodka-loving police inspector (Stephen Coombs). This is everything a British sex farce should be: lots of women running around in skimpy underwear, plenty of sexual double and triple entendres, slamming doors, embarrassing situations, crazy sight gags.

Somehow everyone stays over, sleeping pills end up in drinks and all hilarity breaks out. When the two 'ladies of the evening' arrive (the statuesque Sarah Martyn's battery powered bra is, um, eye-catching) and set their sights on the befuddled bank inspector the laughter is almost continuous.

Sean Power is brilliant as the hapless bank clerk who's directed to get rid of the porn which keeps arriving by the truckload. Jim Neilly's character is one of the funniest at the Barn in years. Solid, first-class acting performances from Hoover, Michaels and Coombs.

Director David Gardner has done a great job with an equally great cast and there's no doubt that No Sex is no dud. An energetic (almost frenetic) ribald laugh-fest that fires on all comedic cylinders. Incidentally, David, the consummate professional, auditioned 150 actors for the play and has come up with a winner in each role. The play is so smooth, the timing so dead on, there's little doubt this fabulous incarnation of No Sex is second to none.

WHAT TO DO with all that porn which arrives instead of the expected glassware?
From left: Leanna Brodie, Kevin Riordan, and Sean Power shine in their roles