Neville's Island			Download the programme.
Excellence shines through the mist
Neville's Island, Grasmere Players' summer production (playing in Grasmere Hall every Wednesday evening up to, and including, July 9 at 8.30pm) is a must for all theatre-lovers.
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		The menace underlying Tim Firth's comedy is immediately suggested by the impressive stage set - an island in Derwentwater with trees, rocks and real water on to which four boat-wrecked middle managers on a team-building exercise struggle ashore, soaked to the skin, amidst a beautifully-painted backdrop of lake and mountain under descending November cloud and mist.
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The men, fog-bound together for two days and nights, are the team captain, Neville (played by Nigel Crook), the 'conscientious, caring family man, something of a failed Boy Scout, who got them into this mess; serious-minded Angus (played by Paul Nelson), equipped for every eventuality except life; the joker, Gordon (played by Tony Kent, macho, selfish and destructive); and the haunted, vulnerable Roy, sensitively portrayed by Hugh Wright as a man on the edge of an abyss, precariously held together by his religion.
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		As the stresses of fear, hunger, hardship and too much proximity peel successive skins off the characters, issues of class, sex and religion are fearlessly explored.
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The action of the comedy bounces along between tragedy and farce, while the dialogue, delivered with pace, simply crackles with wit. Perhaps the delivery of some of the lines could be given more weight, allowing for the frequent explosions of audience laughter, but the character-playing is wholly credible, and this brilliantly-crafted play, in Margaret Hughes' excellent production, offers a thought-provoking and highly entertaining evening.
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JR The Westmorland Gazette, 1997.