Kiltoom group's new comedy is Out of Order

Kiltoom Drama group’s upcoming production is 'Out of Order', by playwright Ray Cooney, which won the 1991 Lawrence Olivier Award for comedy.

And Kiltoom’s cast of 10 well-defined and developed characters is promising to deliver a memorable night's entertainment set in suite 648 of London’s Westminster Hotel.

The play opens in in Kiltoom Parish Hall (N37 NY36) on Friday, November 27, and runs for four nights up to and including Monday, November 30, at 8pm each night.

Attendees are being encouraged to come 15-20 minutes early to secure parking and to avoid disappointment (no advance booking facilities).

The plot revolves around Richard Willey, a Junior Conservative MP in Westminster, who has meticulously planned a rendezvous in a central London hotel suite with Jane Worthington, the opposition party’s secretary.

Of course, where farce is concerned, the best-laid plans can sometimes go catastrophically sideways - rapidly spiralling out of control into total chaos.

As predicted, the junior Minister’s plans begin to unravel with the discovery of a dead man’s head jammed in their balcony window.

Desperate to avoid a career-ending scandal, Richard Willey drags his timid and obedient private secretary, George Pigden, into an escalating web of frantic lies and cover-up.

During the next two hours a sticky situation goes downhill rapidly with the arrival of several other people at suite 648 including: an unscrupulous waiter, a frustrated hotel manager, the MP’s loving wife Pamela, Jane Worthington’s distraught husband Ronnie, a bossy Nurse Foster, and an Italian maid obsessed with servicing the bedroom.

To bring these characters to life, director Ollie Hegarty has assembled a stellar cast of 10 with some fresh new faces, some reappearances and of course, some more mature faces.

Ollie says: “Out of Order is packed with all the ingredients of an entertaining night of pure escapism. It includes a fast-paced clever script, an unexplained corpse, mistaken identities, misunderstandings, malfunctions, and even a well-planned extra-marital affair.

"Part of a drama group’s role in the community is to help us all escape temporarily from our real-world responsibilities and worries”.

Malcolm Whelan plays the smooth, confident Richard Willey, MP and junior minister with the Conservative party. John Quinlan plays the obliging, obedient George Pigden, Parliamentary Personal Secretary (PPS) to Mr Willey.

Eabha Crehan plays Jane Worthington. Although she is employed full-time as the Labour party’s secretary, tonight she has planned a secret rendezvous with the leader of the opposition party.

Della Sammon plays Pamela Willey, the poised, sharp, perceptive wife of Richard Willey, while Paul Gallagher plays Ronnie Worthington, Jane Worthington’s suspicious, volatile and deeply insecure husband.

Tom Blaine plays ‘The Body’ stuck in the hotel window frame outside suite 648. The rather heavy ‘defective’ sash window frame accidentally fell on the victim’s neck as he tried to enter the suite from the outside. The question remains: what was his motive for entering?

Tony Colgan plays the Hotel Manager, a rather proper, though increasingly suspicious authority figure, while Donie Hamrock plays the opportunistic, conniving, and unscrupulous hotel waiter.

Lisa Nugent plays Nurse Gladys Foster, a very proper, matronly nurse and caretaker for George Pigden’s elderly mother.

Anne Newcomen, meanwhile, plays an Italian maid with a limited command of English.

She arrives at suite 648 a few times asking if she can “make the bed please”.

'Out of Order' will be staged in Kiltoom Parish Hall from November 27-30, inclusive, at 8pm nightly.