Play does as title says
10:31am Friday 19th June 2009 in News
Feelgood
Bolton Little Theatre
YOU may not think there is much to feel good about at the minute, but if you were to spend a couple of hours at the Bolton Little Theatre watching Feelgood, you may revise that opinion.
For a play originally written by Spitting Image and Not The Nine O’Clock News writer Alistair Beaton in 2001, and scheduled by the Bolton Little Theatre last summer, it is amazing how topical the show is.
Director Steve Gill has updated the script to include memory sticks and Blackberrys but doesn’t lose the biting satire which makes Feelgood such a “state of the nation”. Spin doctor Eddie, played by the superb Phil Lunt, is the best bits of Alistair Campbell and Peter Capaldi’s Malcolm Tucker — from BBC’s The Thick Of It — rolled into one brilliantly neurotic ball.
Matthew James’ Lord George is equally brilliant, depicting a peer which could have easily reflect those who have been exposed in the recent expenses scandal.
Helen Price-Aindow pulls off the cynical hack with aplomb, while Simon Mott and Michael Morris, as the speech writer and gag writer respectively, provide perfect comedy fodder for Eddie.
The Prime Minister, played by a different actor on each night — I had the pleasure of seeing local lad Bernard Wrigley — is only on stage for a 10-minute spell at the end, but is as sleazy and untrustworthy as you’d expect.
A perfect tonic to the doom and gloom of the recession! It gets my vote!
Until Saturday. For tickets call 01204 334400.
Andrew Greaves
