Completely Overruled

If you like  Noel Coward , you’ll  like this. Diamonds and elaborate dress at the ready. Prepare to be dazzled by clipped tones, the red lion (a small theatre above a pub) and some of the prettiest girls in north London. In Bernard Shaw’s three short plays Overruled, How he lied to Her Husband and Villagers Wooing  the best of the Britain at the turn of the century is encapsulated. How He lied to her Husband portrays the innocent wiles of the young  love sick puppy (Leo Wyndam) whining over his married sophisticated mistress  (Jasmine Hyde)  whilst irritating her possessive husband (Jim Creighton) who get on like a fog horn and a hangover.    Overruled, consists of Private Lives in a nutshell. Although Shaw is unable to capture the witticisms of Noel Coward, the comedic value of Mr. Lunn (Patrick Warner) and Mr. Juno (Leo Wyndam) and the attractiveness and charm of both young women manage to make for it. Indeed Lucy Hough and Alice St Clair are so unwittingly beautiful that dressed in my finest wet look leggings with a full face of mac make-up as I am I as may as well be a toad sitting at the bottom of a garden pond.  The most charming of the trilogy falls in Villagers a wooing. Lucy Hough as the character of  Z, though annoying her male counterpart (Jim Creighton) A on their cruise ship manages to pull off what could be considered a thoroughly irritating talkative character well. As we follow A and Z to a tiny village shop, Z’s emphatic marriage proposals to A seem to become slightly irritating and desperate. However this too manages to lend itself to the charm of the entire ensemble. Overruled, is a pleasurable and easy to watch . This is saying something when you’ve spent an entire day recovering from a trip to A&E  the previous evening.  The only criticism that can be made is when Z changes costume onstage, which when sitting next to your significant other it’s not so much that you feel like a toad at the bottom of a pond but an ameba at the bottom a pond that has just been trodden on.