By Conor O’Neill
It’s Christmas time at the Theatre at the Mill in Newtownabbey, and for the second year running that can only mean one thing, another gift from the pen of playwright, Michael Cameron. Since his breakthrough biography of Ruby! some five or six years ago, Cameron has yet to let an audience down with his offerings
Last year’s The Shop At The Top Of The Town was a delightful hit as Cameron and co. traced the lives of the staff and customers of a 1970s department store in bomb-addled Belfast. This year we travel back in time another decade into the swinging 1960s and meet the super fabulous Holly Knight: style icon, gourmet, agony aunt, columnist and radio star.
*Ruby Campbell as Holly Knight and Richard Croxford as Bob Baxter*
Holly, on first appearances seems to have everything, the looks, the style, the skills and the tenacity. Truth is it’s all a front. Her camp friend Johnny (Rea Campbell-Hill) is the fashionista, her other buddy Frankie (Jo Donnelly) is the whiz in the kitchen and Holly is nothing more than audacity and ambition. Her scene-setting flair has caught the eye of Bob Baxter, editor of Northern Ireland’s biggest selling newspaper, the Belfast Chronicle.
Baxter wants some of Knight’s showbiz dust to brighten up the Chronicle’s slightly dreary image and bolster readership figures, and nothing is going to stand in his way. The relationship between Holly, Baxter and Baxter’s aide, and obvious power behind the throne, Miss Boyd (Rosie Barry) is one of the many intrigues in this Christmas jolly. The power structure of the bright, feminine youths versus the Old Boy, privileged old guard gets many a laugh as Holly just about struggles to keep up her party lifestyle and many charades. This is devilishly noted by the equally ambitious Miss Boyd.
*Hollywood star Brett Beaumont (Darren Franklin) and Miss Boyd (Rosie Barry)*
As with most of Cameron’s work, the play does not rely on one struggle or plot alone. The relationship between Johnny and his altar-rail sucking, devout and troubled mother (Jo Donnelly) is not only one designed for laughs – which it gets many – but also for it’s touching mother/son relationship in where one is trying to live two separate and impossible lives and the other turning a blind, but ever-weeping eye.
*The ever fabulous Johnny (Rea Campbell-Hill*
To throw a bit of Hollywood stardom into the mix Baxter has American actor Brett Beaumont Darren Franklin) and his over-the-top agent Doris Laker (Jo Donnelly) play their parts with plans for Holly to shadow the star, show him Belfast’s glamourous side and make her writing debut in the Christmas eve debut to the Chronicle’s readers.
What could possible go wrong?
*Star Brett Beaumont (Darren Franklin and his agent Doris Laker (Jo Donnelly)*
Along with the slick acting and writing, Cameron, along with composer Chris Warner, provides us with not only a pacey script, including plenty of gags and some heartfelt sentimentality, but there’s a bunch of original songs into the bargain. Genres are there for the taking: swing jazz standards are soon trumped by Phil Spector wall-of-sound 60s specials and then move to more tender ballads. What an audience can be assured of is they’re never more than five to ten minutes away for the stage to erupt and for the cast to get their groove on.
For a second year Cameron’s writing is directed by Colm G Doran. Doran’s innovative approach suits Cameron’s deft writing, the two seemingly able to literally read from the same script. With clever use of the set designed by Ciaran Bagnall, the stage moves from BBC radio studio, to Holly’s party house, Hollywood agent’s apartment to the Belfast Chronicle’s pressroom.
If I have one issue with the show, it’s I think it concludes just a little too quickly. Think of the traditional story arc, set up, conflict and resolution. O Holly Knight follows this time-worn structure almost to a tee. There are enough little subplots to keep the eager audiences on the edge of their seats, but as things come to their climax, I think the resolution is a tad hurried.
That’s my one and only small gripe with this work.
If slick, socially aware, quietly confrontational Christmas fun, with a ton of good tunes thrown into the mixture is your bag, the O Holly Knight is the show for you.
For booking details visit http://www.theatreatthemill.com or phone the box office on 0300 1237788
O Holly Knight runs up to and including December 30th, 2023
ENDS
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