OTTC Theatre trip to see A Few Good Men in London

When OTTC's Fenella Harrop and her husband Mark realised that A Few Good Men was playing in the West End, there was no doubt about going to see it!

Fellow members Ashley and Nancy Heath tagged along; Ashley being especially curious because he played Lt Jack Ross in OTTC's version.

Here, Ashley gives us his verdict...

"The vast majority of the theatre I see is at the Swindon Arts Centre, so I was immediately impressed by the venue itself. The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a lovely old Grade 1 listed building and we were up in the Gods – good job we're not afraid of heights! We were probably a little further away from the stage than we would have been at the back of the Arts Centre but the angle made it feel more distant. No matter, good seats and a clear view!

From the off, the technical aspects were impressive – the production really made excellent use of fast moving scene changes (Lots of chain metal flats speedily moved on and off to block off or delineate acting areas…) to keep up the pace. Very nice.

I was keen to see if they would perform the same version we did in April 2005. It might sound a daft thing to say but when the author, Aaron Sorkin, also wrote the screenplay for the hugely successful movie version, there's a choice of writing to go for – will it be the movie, or the stage version, or will it have some new dialogue?

Well, it turned out to be the latter option – when Whittaker meets Galloway in an early scene it was veritably peppered with new (to me anyway!) lines – especially from Whittaker.

That's how it went on as well – I always had this irrational feeling that unfamiliar lines to me were actually the actors ad libbing til they got back on script! Daft, eh?

Overall, I was impressed by the commitment of the company. This show has been running since late August; time enough perhaps for any night to be "just another show". I never felt that; everyone seemed up for it. Rob, particularly, seemed to revel in the applause, bringing the cast on for another bow.

It's worth going to see this show. It's very good indeed.

A Few Good Men runs until December 2005. We went for the £27 tickets in the Upper Circle. See the Theatre Royal Haymarket's website (http://www.trh.co.uk/showing/).

Don't buy the ice cream – they want £3 a tub for it.

Ashley Heath
Lt Jack Ross – retired