News

Comic Potential

02/07

Last week's production of Alan Ayckbourn's Comic Potential showed the strength of acting talent in the Fourth and Lower Fifth years.

The play is set in a future in which cheap daytime soap operas are made with robot actors or ‘actoids' instead of people. One actoid, Jacie, shows signs of independence and a growing sense of humour, captivating a young writer who runs away with her. Aided by jaded film director Chance Tate they run from hotel to hotel, trying to escape the clutches of villainess Carla Pepperbloom, who wants to melt down Jacie. The play ends with Carla discredited and Jacie in charge of a film studio. Although the play contains many of the ingredients of farce, even including a custard pie, it juggles serious ideas with great dexterity: the connection between humour and humanity, the history of screen comedy, the expectations men and women have of each other and the nature of the divine. Bella Hornby gave a great performance at Jacie, ably supported by Alex Bozic, Johnny Tydeman and Clare Saxby as the writer, director and villainess respectively. However, there was strength in depth throughout the company and the play contained some of the strongest acting seen in a Lower School Play at Brighton College.