Still no further word on the cancellation of our spring offering of ‘The Female of the Species’ rest assured dear reader we will get to the bottom of it, my best intrepid reporter is on the case.

Last Wednesday a select bunch of us ventured unto the New Theatre to witness ‘Stop Messing About’ a Kenneth Williams extravaganza starring Robin Sebastian as the great man himself. He was very good it must be said. Unfortunately the production fell way behind the previous show staged by this team ‘Round the Horne Revisited’, put on at the same theatre some two or three years ago. In that production the character of Kenneth Horne was a great foil to Williams and the humour benefitted from that. In ‘Stop Messing About’ the interaction with the straight man was missing and the comic interplay suffered accordingly. The announcer ‘Douglas Smith’, and yes I do remember him from the radio series, was ably played but couldn’t replace the genius of Kenneth Horne, pity.

Also unfortunately there were very few in the audience and again this marred the performance for me. Sitting on the front row we felt we had to laugh longer and louder than perhaps was merited to make up for the sparse audience and perhaps help the cast think it was all worthwhile. Consequently at the end of the afternoon we were all worn out.

The lack of spectators could have been due to the price not being discounted on the matinee. The age group that would be interested in this production are almost certainly now pensioners and perhaps on a fixed income. £20 a ticket is a bit steep for a lot of people. Bearing in mind the performance only ran for a little over an hour and a half it’s a bit steep for me too.

I see ‘The Producers’ is coming to the New Theatre soon. I have always wanted to see this and must remember to grab a ticket.

The story of the week concerns a man and his wife who were awakened at 3:00 am by a loud pounding on the door. The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.

"Not a chance," says the husband, "it is 3:00 in the morning!"

He slams the door and returns to bed.

"Who was that?" asked his wife.

"Just some drunk guy asking for a push," he answers.

"Did you help him?" she asks.

"No, I did not, it is 3:00 in the morning and it is pouring rain out there!"

"Well, you have a short memory," says his wife. "Can't you remember about three months ago when we broke down, and those two guys helped us?

I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself!"

The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pounding rain.

He calls out into the dark, "Hello, are you still there?"

"Yes," comes back the answer.

"Do you still need a push?" calls out the husband.

"Yes, please!" comes the reply from the dark.

"Where are you?" asks the husband.

"Over here on the swing," replied the drunk.