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Octopus Soup starring Nick Hancock
15th April 2019 - 20th April 2019
A razor-sharp new comedy with Nick Hancock, star of West End hit An Evening with Gary Lineker and host of iconic TV shows, Room 101 and They Think It’s All Over.
OCTOPUS SOUP!
by Jack Milner and Mark Stevenson
Directed by Joe Harmston
Fawlty Towers meets The Sopranos in this brand-new British farce! Octopus Soup! is the dinner party from hell – and you’ll be crying with laughter!
Simon Fielder and Belgrade Theatre Coventry present the World Premiere of this razor-sharp comedy with Nick Hancock, coming to Malvern for one week only!
Meet Seymour, the safest man in Britain. An insurance guy who wears a belt and braces (and another belt, just to be sure!) He’s in last chance saloon with everything riding on this one vital conference call. What could possibly go wrong? Well, literally EVERYTHING! Enter Marvin, a bungling burglar with bad knees…
Meanwhile Seymour’s neurotic wife Gloria awaits news on a star TV role, a psychopathic mob boss is just around the corner and a share of the £30 billion insurance scam is at stake. Will our heroes and their octopus get out alive?!
It’s non-stop laughs with Nick Hancock (iconic TV host for Room 101 and They Think It’s All Over) joined by Paul Bradley (EastEnders, Holby City), Gillian Bevan (Holby City, Teachers), Carolyn Backhouse (Coronation Street, The Bill) and the legendary Eric Richard (The Bill, EastEnders)
Octopus Soup! Is a guaranteed comedy hit. Don’t miss out!
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Event Reviews
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Colin
Witty fast moving ,clever,funny great new farce.i hope it does well .
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Robert
Very disappointing expected something better!
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Choice Radio Worcester
After what seems an age, Nick Hancock, probably most famous for "They think it's all over" on TV which ended in 2005, is back on stage in a comedy curiously called Octopus Soup! (the reason for this thankfully revealed during the show). Alongside Hancock are Paul Bradley from Eastenders, Gillian Bevan and Carolyn Backhouse (who have both had parts in Holby City) and a stalwart from The Bill, Eric Richard who for 17 years played Sergeant Bob Fryer and you who might think had been suddenly left out of this production as he doesn't appear until well into the second half!). Oh, and an octopus…
There are a couple of themes running through the show. Backhouse's character Gloria Bignall attempting to get the main lead in a TV detective series set in Northumbria and husband Seymour (Hancock) attempting to set up a big deal with global insurance firm G.I.T. headed by Bevan's Virginia Whale which risks coming a cropper when inept burglar Marvin Haynes (Bradley) appears on the scene and takes over the proceedings, ultimately bringing his big boss Alan to the party (Eric Richard, who has clearly moved to the dark side since leaving The Bill!)
Billed as a "new British farce", it did have some elements the audience would expect, including Hancock's trousers - and more - being removed within the first couple of minutes and some old-fashioned wordplay from Bradley, for example confusing "navy" and "naive" and thinking Moby Dick was about Cardiff (a joke which could do easily have gone in a completely different direction...). But there was not enough to keep up the laughs throughout the whole show. Indeed, the last section of the plot was completely devoid of humour which was quite jarring considering this was meant to be a comedy. The elements of the final scenes could so easily have been utterly hilarious and truly farcical but the audience was left watching what was more like the conclusion of a tense dramatic play.
Mostly mildly amusing with a couple of good laugh out loud bits, it's perhaps unfortunate that in the programme it states that it is "cast in the mould of instant modern classics like The Play That Goes Wrong and One Man, Two Guv'nors" as in drawing direct comparisons to these two major success stories, Octopus Soup! Is clearly in a different league.
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Marion
Very disappointing. The jokes seemed laboured and were mainly based on burglar Marvin’s word play. Several members of the audience left after the first half. The second half was slightly better but not much. The cast tried hard but all in all a very disappointing experience.
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Kate
Very, very disappointing not very funny at all.
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Helen
Very disappointed with this as a comedy, my friend and I didn't find it funny at all and wished we had taken the opportunity to leave after the first half like other audience members
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Mary
A most disappointing experience. Simply not funny. Some people left at the interval and we almost did so.
