Farce of shopping trip gone wrong

Arts Festival

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THE BOYS FROM VENEZUELA: Los Amigos Invisibles, from left, Juan M Roura, Julio Briceno, Maurigo Arcas, Armando Figueredo, and Jose R Torres.

LOREN BATSON/The Dominion Post

STILL FUN: Mercy Ojelade has 100 performances of The Walworth Farce under her belt.

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Comedy The Walworth Farce is set at 11am in a London council flat where three Irish men are about to drink six cans of beer. Soon five people will die.

Sounding very much alive, Mercy Ojelade said the play was like Marmite: "You love it or you hate it."

Not an original cast member, Ojelade said that when she first saw The Walworth Farce as an audience member at the Edinburgh Festival, she was definitely a member of the former group.

"I was just blown away when I saw it in Edinburgh. [When it finished] you just sat in your seat for a few minutes. I was in awe and shock."

The Walworth Farce, which opens tonight, is set on the 15th floor of a London council flat and tells the tale of a father and his two sons. It also features the death of five people, a strange blue sauce and a shopping trip gone wrong. Ojelade plays the clerk in a store on the ill-fated shopping trip.

"The play kind of goes off tilt due to the wrong shopping being collected . . . It just highlights the strain the boys are under and the stress the dad is under."

She had performed the show well over 100 times but insisted the cast still had fun.

"As a performer it's not the kind of show you get bored with."

That was helped by director Mikel Murfi, who performed the play The Whiteheaded Boy in the 2000 festival. Murfi found something new to introduce wherever the play was staged. The Walworth Farce had been performed in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Australia.

Ojelade said though the story related specifically to Irish or British audiences, themes of stress and family played well to all audiences.

The Walworth Farce, at the Opera House, runs tonight unti Sunday at 7.30pm, with an extra 2pm show on Saturday.

- © Fairfax NZ News