The Ghosts of Ricketts Hill is the third show from junkyard theatre troupe The Suitcase Royale and directed by the multi-talented Neill Gladwin. The trio (Miles O’Neil, Glen Walton and Joseph O’Farrell) enact the story of Sturt, Bird and Fox, three aviators who crash land in the desert and their attempts to send for help.
The show initially shows promise as the three performers clad in leather aviator caps and goggles, crash their miniature airplane and seemingly promise to take the audience on an exciting boys’ own adventure. This scene, as they cluster together holding the model wooden plane in front of them, hurtling to the ground was reminiscent of some of the excellent mime work of The Four Noels. However, from this point on the show dissolves into an incoherent absurdist ramble that fails to deliver on its earlier promise.
The story is never fully realised and instead the audience is treated to a mish-mash of characters and scenarios that seem incredibly underdeveloped. This felt more like watching three self-indulgent teenagers spontaneously putting on an average show for a group of mates. Occasionally the performers would use the potentially humorous device of slipping out of character and falling into petty arguments on stage but unfortunately these moments fell flat. And I can’t help but feel that when all else failed they just resorted to shouting and making jokes about ‘mounting shafts’. The Meatloaf lip-synch finale was overly-long and underly-funny.
In fairness to The Suitcase Royale the show started 45 minutes later than scheduled and the evening was freezing. Perhaps these factors dampened my spirits, but I doubt it. I have heard loads of great things about these performers from many credible sources, so I can only assume this show is not up to their usual standard. There was so much possibility to develop this show into something deeper, funnier and ultimately more rewarding but quite frankly this is one Suitcase Royale with cheese that I don’t plan on ordering again.
Visit the comedy festival website for bookings and further details