KING’S THEATRE, EDINBURGH – UNTIL 5th MARCH 2022
REVIEWED BY RACHEL FARRIER
3***
‘Sheila’s Island’ is a wholesale adaptation of a comedy written by Tim Firth almost 30 years ago which was called ‘Neville’s Island’ and originally featured an all-male cast. With this knowledge, I had wondered whether the underlying premise (middle management on a team building exercise that goes very wrong) and jokes would feel jarring with a slightly altered script and all-female cast. This was not the case at all and the gang of four women certainly felt like familiar characters from any office environment. Abigail Thaw felt like the comedic centre of the show, playing a witheringly acerbic Denise – and she certainly garnered the most laughs from the audience over the evening. Judy Flynn as Sheila, the team-appointed ‘captain’ was very relatable and amusing as her character sought to keep up the spirits of her team mates, despite increasingly desperate circumstances.
Tracy Collier, the understudy who took on the role of Julie in place of Rina Fatania, deserved the extra round of applause she received at the end of the show – with a cast of only four it cannot be easy to step into such a role at the last minute and she produced a sweet and affectionate performance of a woman who begins to see her beloved husband in a new light as the play progresses.
There were some technical difficulties on this first night, with the curtain going up twenty minutes late due to lighting issues, and the sound quality throughout the performance being uneven – at times it was hard to hear lines, which obviously impacted on their comedic value.
Overall, this is a gently amusing play with occasional laugh out loud moments but there were patches which felt like jokes were being stretched too thin, and you wanted the plot to move along a little faster. As with many comedies, there were moments of poignancy within the script, although these sometimes felt jarring when touching upon very serious issues. However, the confident performances from experienced comedy actors overcame these obstacles, and made for an enjoyable evening out.