BLACKMORE’S ACORN ANTIQUES HEALTH SPA FOR TAN AND IMPLANTS’

I felt I had missed out a slice of my life recently when offered a part in Acorn Antiques. ‘What’s that’ did not gain any Tesco vouchers either, and coupled with a lack of knowledge of the author almost made the director turn to her cat instead. It was of course a Victoria Wood special which was a huge stage success because it was so bad. Containing all the ‘groaneries’ of Crossroads and Wagoner’s Walk, I am told by professionals, it was like having a frontal lobotomy with a pruning fork. That being said, it took the west end by storm appearing as Acorn Antiques The Musical. It has to be said it is a required taste, but excruciatingly funny. One devotee is Blackmore Players, Rosemarie Nelson, who has bitten the Queen Anne table leg and taken on the whole thing from directing to chorography, a labour of love if ever there was one. You can see the results in a four performance run in May, with Rosemarie trawling all the players into her net. At the moment we, as I include myself in the ensemble, are honing the skills to the ‘nth’ degree as to be bad you have to be good first if you get my meaning. Ms Wood decided to take her revenge on Crossroads in her 1985 series, Victoria Wood As Seen On TV.

Based on the live TV soap and others, it had all the wobbly sets, overacting and improbable plots. Not that Blackmore Players entertain the above, but it explains the ‘be good to be bad’ . Setting the action in the quaint little village of Manchesterford, the outlandish plots and devilish characters settle on the population with the conversion of an awfully quaint local Antiques Shop, Acorn Antiques run by the squeaky voiced cyber Barbie Doll, Ms Babs.

Drawing up the battle lines when it was discovered the conversion was to a health tanning spa and grot-coffee shop, Ms Babs calls her forces to the flag and gets help from Mrs Overall, the symbolic tea lady with her trusty stained tea pot and home made macaroons, the answer to Armageddon and the excruciating The Only Way is Essex, (TOWIE) in one serving.

The musical does have elements of being an adult pantomime with some forthright themes but none the less hysterical when dripping from the lips of cloned Barbies and well worn, Great Date Kens. Be prepared for every thing you never thought possible or feasible, and bring the Kleenex tissues to mop up the sobbed tears of laughter. Held at the Blackmore Theatre, carefully crafted within the Village Hall, musk and polish all add to the ambience of what promises to be good evenings entertainment with cult style distressed tops and wood worm ridden legs or whatever is in the wardrobe.

The show runs from Thursday May 8 to Saturday May 10 with a matinee at 2.30pm at the Nine Ashes Road venue, Blackmore CM4 0QW. Tickets are available from the box office on 01277 200305 from £5 to £10. or go on the website blackmoreplayers.co.uk for more information. ( Below. Blackmore Players in pantomime)